#but neither is zim

[ditzdove]

How would Zim and Dib meet and fall in love in your Rockstar AU?

Ok so there’s lots of information you’ll need to know about both these losers to understand how they even meet.

but to keep it short zim crash lands on earth after escaping from the massive as one of the survivors of the irken rebellion. Dib is a burnt out college student turned rockstar that’s being used for money by his manager. So neither of them are in good spots.

Zim needs someone who can help him get in contact with his rebel forces and the resisty while on this strange planet. And Dib is looking for something new and exciting something he can focus on other that his career or his relationship with his father.

They both start out by using each other as a means to an end. But slowly they find out they have a lot in common and become friends or something more 😏

[invadergrabass]

theirs will be a divorce so catastrophic it shakes the very foundation of the empire

[unlikelytrashcreation]

Nightmare men

[hermajestytak]

Zim and Skoodge after getting EVERYTHING wrong in their skool presentation but at least it's over

[noirandchocolate]

Is this funnier or less funny than when I was at the front of the “top Discworld blogs” a few years ago?

[crvstybowlofcereal]

Tell me about your tattoos if you have them and or what tattoos you want

i have two tattoos, and i plan to get more!

i got the first one two days after my 18th birthday, i had been planning it forever. it's a memorial piece for my first dog Rocky. I got it on the outside of my thigh, very high up so most of it is covered when i wear shorts.

i covered up the bit with his face because i dont like to share it very much, im terrified of the idea of someone finding a picture of it and getting the exact same tattoo because that's my dog and he meant the world to me. i know its a bit of an irrational fear, and i dont worry about it with my other designs, but i try not to share it online fully, but heres a different picture of him!

the flowers underneath are red roses, lilies, and forget me nots, for their specific meanings

the next tattoo i got just a couple months ago for a 7 year friend-iversary

its based on several layers of inside jokes

my long-term tattoo goal is to fill out my leg like a sleeve made of individual tattoos. i also intend to design all of my own tattoos.

some other ones i have in mind for my next ones are - a ghost (i always draw sheet ghosts the same way) - the mystery machine from scooby doo - the irken invader symbol from invader zim - a swarm of bats (probably on my inner thigh) - moon phases - lavender (and amethyst?)

more context for things in the tags

[neolxzr]

OK so heres some of my favorite things that were talked about during the enter the florpus commentary thing yesterday:

one of jhonen's favorite things in the whole movie is the writing in zim's kitchen that says "do anything is real?"

they clarified specifically that gir was not lying and he did in fact eat a baby at the crazy taco

gir smells REALLY bad. theres like rotting organic matter in his body at all times. he stinks

zim's human suit is made out of actual human skin

zim is acting drunk on nacho cheese during that scene in his house because richard horvitz recorded it while drunk

they planned to have this whole thing with tak's ship only agreeing to go to moo-ping 10 because it knows tak is there. they wouldve shown her in silhouette during that brief explosion and she wouldve stowed away on the ship without anyone knowing and then wouldve shown up towards the end of the movie, but they decided to cut it out

zim did not need to frame membrane for a crime in order to get him into space prison and likely just tossed the guards like 5 bucks for it. its a shady place. they did specify though that if he did frame him for something, it would have been jaywalking

they pointed out during that scene where zim is celebrating peace day on dib's lawn that zim's reaction to seeing dib was very much genuine and that's just how his brain works. he is genuinely surprised to see him pop out of his own house. (they also described his reaction as like "being surprised to see your best friend")

the ham joke was ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to the film and at some point jhonen remembered it and was like GUYS. WE ALMOST FORGOT THE HAM

there was supposed to be this joke where it cuts to and from gaz and dib in tak's ship and they would've had to stop at like a warp station or something and theyd be waiting in a long queue of spaceships and the radio is broken in the ship so theyre stuck listening to that one song. then itd cut to them like totally braindead drooling from listening to it for so long. and then a little later itd cut back a FINAL time and theyd know all of the words and both be singing along to it. but this was also cut out so only the last bit remained

when asked "who would win: minimoose or mrs. bitters?" the answer was along the lines of "neither, i think all of us lose in that scenario"

the tallest are just two dudes who happen to be the same height and therefore have to share the same job. they are not brothers and they are also not gay lovers ("as much as you want them to be, they are not. there is no love in this universe")

skooge is in fact alive and lives in zim's basement. they wanted to keep the number of "hey remember this thing from the tv show!" moments to a minimum so he was not mentioned in the movie. but he is there

[inbarfink]

So I usually write down the name of our favorite Horrible Bug Boy as ‘Zim’ because it’s the simplest and easiest for my muscle memory. And I understand why some folks go for 'ZIM' since it is used in some official media. But I also think it’s important to acknowledge that neither ‘Zim’ nor ‘ZIM’ is how our favorite terrible Irken spells his own name. 

It’s ZiM!

You can first kinda see it on the drawing he did in ‘Bestest Friend’ 

But it’s more obvious looking at his message for his past self in ‘Bad Bad Rubber Piggy’, which is longer and include a sample of ZiM writing in both upper and lowercase

He can use regular non-dotted uppercase 'I', as seen in the word "TIME MACHINE" but the 'i' in his name is dotted lower-case 'i'. Meanwhile, the 'M' is exactly the same upper-case 'M' as in 'TIME MACHINE'.

His proper name is ZiM.

[p-s-yokubo]

This. THIS. This is one of the things I love about invader zim. Because while yes it is just a silly sci-fi series about two very inept guys trying to stop each other from achieving their goals— it is also this. It is silly but the reality of this series would be this. Zim and dib are in fact doomed to repeat this cycle for the rest of time because that is what the plot demands. And they are completely unaware of this cycle, so they just keep going. Neither of them can ever get what they want or move forward in life in any way. Because they are not allowed to by powers far beyond their control. It’s tragic. But also we get to see the silly guys do silly things for all eternity so hey there’s that

[ms-scarletwings]

A scene from Invader Zim I seem to find way creepier than anyone else does

It’s just weirdly good horror to me as a years later rewatch somehow. Dripping with menace.

Long time fans know this is one of the most theatric and chatty characters in the show, alone or not. He also more often than not gets over -ahem, denies- setback and mission fumbles in record time. Not here. Just the silence that lets you truly hear that eerie ass ambience in the background. Just watching him reviewing back collected surveillance, on presumably what’s supposed to be human child behavioral data (this was still season 1 after all), but he’s neither mocking the subjects nor boasting about himself for once. He’s not even complaining or getting into one of his spiels. It’s just that cut back to the reel of a dozen pains he’s suffered at the Skool, cut back to that stone still expression, cut back to the tapes. You don’t know if they’re all from a singularly horrible day or a pile of weeks of humiliations stacking on a camel’s back. You get nothing of explanation except for that quiet seething in his expression- The scariest kind of angry. It’s Zim, ruminating on a god’s honest murderous rage, toward this species that seems to only justify his contempt of them with every single interaction. Almost as if you can watch this and imagine his hatred just getting hotter and hotter for all mankind under the surface, and then narrowing in like a magnifying glass straight onto the worst and most frequent offender of all. Those four consecutive Dib clips are what finally seem to make him feel like he’s seen enough and he’s fully decided on beginning to craft what we later find out was the Moosey wormhole plan. If it was only about Dib standing in the way of the mission, like he frames it, this episode intro wouldn’t serve any purpose. It was about so much more than Dib probably ever thinks about, the axe forgets and all that.

To me this clip is like the one moment where I swear to Tallest Zim was feeling on a kind of Nny wavelength in that isolated instant,

AND it’s one of many moments where I shake my head remembering how Dib’s average Tuesday is spent more recklessly than poking a sleeping dragon in the eye with a stick.

[starpaw0007]

I’m rewatching Invader Zim and one thing that I never noticed before is that ZIM, on several occasions, calls himself evil. He has “evil plans”- which is very strange to me because shouldn’t ZIM see himself as the hero? Or maybe not so much a hero, but as a competent soldier who’s just doing his duty? So I wonder why he’s so into the evil persona (he is evil but you get what I mean).

Neither his leaders, nor his comrades, as far as I know have mentioned the word “evil”. Yes, it’s called Operation Impending Doom because they are .. dooming their enemies. But in their minds, wouldn’t they still not register that as an “evil” thing? Because it directly benefits them and their empire.

So I wonder why ZIM calls his plans evil and why he’s so into this villain thing. Does evil just have a different connotation to him? Did his exposure to Earth media introduced him to the concept of evil? Is it because Dib calls him evil, so he’s taken it on as a label? Does he really think his actions are evil, or is it just something he says to sound cool and threatening?

It’s thrown me off more than it should, because I’m wondering what the implications are (even though I know it’s likely just to make it easily digestible for a young audience)

[mrehkka]

Read from the top-down, not side to side:

Left strip: the pak is rewarding Dib for taking care of its host 😌

Middle: pak is touched to learn that much love is stored in the Dib 🥺 (Dib views the pak as zim-adjacent and he's not wrong)

Right: that scene from the comics where Dib is begging Zim for poop cola. With blank thought bubbles neither want to actually say, for you to fill in your own blank. I just thought it would be funny if Zim was being a lover boy and the pak is like "NO! Keep it SMALL!" But Dib is ALSO being a little lover boy 😌

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

I had a long argument with someone on whether or not stomping Belos before he dies was better than letting him die pathetically, and I asked myself if that is what fans really believe in... or if they would hail any Belos' death as the perfect one if Dana choose a different one?

They also justify the stomping as being part of horror-comedy genre and that Belos should not have any dignity what so ever because apparently letting him die in despair with no stomping is running the risk of making the audience feel "sorry" for him.

Honestly, these justifications make The Owl House feel more shallow. Like, why shouldn't the audience be allowed to feel sorry for Belos? What is the danger? That people would agree with Belos' views?

Or are we supposed to develop a black and white view of the world akin to a conservative view but inverted? And then hide behind the horror comedy genre to justify less drama? I hate to say it, but Nostalgia Critic is right about Belos being this strange outlier. The show seems to be afraid of actually doing a complex, tragic and yet irredeemable villain.

It doesn't make any sense to argue that Belos' death fits because of toh's genre as a horror comedy because the scene was neither played for horror nor laughs. At best, you have the image of Philip slowly being dissolved by the rain and then Raine's smug "that was satisfying" line. The overall tone of the scene is one of contempt as Philip tries one last plea to Luz only to be snuffed out (and weirdly validated) by the heroes. Its intent is to be cathartic for both audience (though as you know doubt know, YMMV) and the characters.

Frankly, despite its marketing, I don't see toh as either a horror or a comedy because it spends more time on slice of life stuff and high school teen drama and romance. And even when it does go for the horror and comedy, both are rather tepid. You want a real example of a horror-comedy for kids, then go watch Courage the Cowardly Dog or Invader Zim.

The reason why I argue the heroes validated Belos is because in the moment of his death, he clings to the idea that as humans, "we're better than this!" It's a moment of pathetic delusion that is appropriately met with silence but then it's ruined with Eda and Co. barging in with "Well, we ain't!" only to then prove his point by mercilessly stomping an already dying man to death. There's a reason why kid shows usually end with either the villain being imprisoned or not outright being murdered by the heroes. Evil has to die by its own hubris, not get killed by the heroes after the Big Battle when they're no longer a threat. I made a post about the importance of defeating a major antagonist twice.

Belos' death also doesn't work with a "Kill your oppressors" theme because the show isn't about that. The show barely spends any time showing why the EC is bad for the Boiling Isles and Eda is the only named wild witch we see getting harassed by them and even then, it's mostly played for laughs given how inept the coven scouts are (seriously, they're able to quit without fear of repercussions).

I think a reason fans are split on Belos' death is because of differing expectations; the fans who paid attention to Belos and the implication of his backstory and waited for every lie to come crashing down on him since that's what the show seemed to be building up to only to be unceremoniously ignored in the end were no doubt disappointed. Then you have the other fans who hated the character to the point that any gruesome death will do, regardless whether it made narrative or thematic sense or not.

Ultimately, I think the biggest reason his death doesn't work is because Belos fails as a villain.

Belos' status as a colonial puritan only works on a meta-level; it serves a cathartic release for marginialized people to see a representative of real world oppression beaten by queer characters as it fulfills the fantasy of finally overthrowing an oppressive system. The fatal flaw though is that none of this works on a narrative level because the coven system is either treated as a joke or simply a career path one must choose and we never see the disenfranchisement of wild witches. People largely get off scot-free opposing Belos, which undermines his credibility as both a dictator and a villain because no one cares about him until the plot needs them to. Luz doesn't even care about proving he's evil until Hollow Mind, which is halfway through season 2.

Belos as a villain only works if you project your own feelings and desires in wanting to see the Evil Christian/Evil Parent destroyed. While this is extremely satisfying emotionally, it does not make a sound story.

All the reasons why people like his death ("it's great the evil colonizer died so pathetically!" "omg, the white christian colonizer was killed by two queer people and their adopted son!" etc) are all meta reasons. And to be clear, it's totally fine if you thought his death was satisfying. But for many people, it did not work for a variety of reasons, including narrative ones. And that differing opinion should be respected instead of arguing some nonsense like "we have to make our villain as stupid/evil as possible or run the risk of people liking/sympathizing with him."

Belos should have died in a manner that connected back to his original sin: the murder of his brother. All of his lies and delusions and fear of being wrong should have played a part in the finale. He should have not died thinking he was right. He should have died realizing that all he did was for nothing. And that he is to blame. And that there is no one waiting for him back home.

[paynomindtotheinsanity]

So at this point in the story neither Zim nor Dib knows that Zim has a zussy, right? Who do you think will be more excited by that discovery?

Me reading the word "zussy"

But yes, neither of them know yet. Dib will be excited, and Zim will be the opposite of that word, and he will forbid Dib from sticking his gross human parts inside of Zim's superior body.

And thus begins Dib's efforts to woo the stubborn Irken 💚 😌

[robotnik-mun]

You know what still gets to me from Enter the Florpus?

This.

This one, brief moment with Membrane.

In this moment, in this exchange with Dib, you can see there's a lot going on in his mind. He knows what Dib wants to hear. He even knows what Dib NEEDS to hear, and some part of him even wants to say it badly, if only for the sake of his son.

But at the same time, he is Professor Membrane. A man of Science, and of principles- principles that cause him to see the world purely through the lens of proven scientific truth. Now, as the audience, we know for ourselves that everything Dib talks about is absolutely true, and more. But Membrane doesn't have that benefit… and even in a world where aliens, nightmare worlds and hog demons are real, paranormal research still attracts the same kind of grifters, attention-seekers and lunatic fringe that it does in real life. From Membrane's perspective, his son is staring down the barrel of a future that will have him as a social outcast at best and a criminally negligent scam-artist at worst. The kind of person who peddles theories about Atlantis and Aliens building Egypt on history programs.

Thus we see the conflict. This is his son's passion, and his son is all but begging for some kind of acknowledgement… but giving that acknowledgement would only help further cement what, from Membrane's perspective, down a path that will bring harm to Dib and maybe others. Especially with his endless insistence that the one, unfortunate green child is an alien… what if he ever accused the wrong person of such a thing?

Membrane WANTS to tell his son what he wants to hear. Membrane NEEDS to stay true to himself and his principles as a scientist… so he tries to find a middle path, and winds up saying basically the worst thing possible- an uncommitted not-answer that only leaves his son furious at him.

It's quite the leap from how he was in the series proper, actively belittling Dib's interests and not even attempting to stand up for him in front of others. To say nothing of his general distance and negligence as a parent, even though he DOES in fact care for his children. Invader Zim was an absurd and mean-spirited show that spared neither Zim nor Dib, and honestly I think that's a big part of why it endured for so long and what made its humor so memorable… but all the same? I do like that Enter the Florpus tossed Dib a small bone when it came to his family, and this moment is what really clinches it for me.

I dunno, I just really like this scene because of the layers I see to it, and its still my favorite.

[emeraldspiral]

IDK if an AU like this already exists, but ZADR where Dib is an Irken scientist sent to earth to study its strange and unique creatures and supernatural phenomena and Zim is assigned as his bodyguard. What neither of them know is that they were both sent by the Tallest to get rid of them. Dib for his outlandish theories that are an embarrassment to the Irken scientific community, and Zim for the usual reasons. The Tallest expect Zim will get himself and Dib killed with his incompetence, but Zim actually takes his duty to protect Dib extremely seriously since it's his only shot at redemption for all the times he's screwed up in the past. He still has a secret agenda to try to conquer the earth in order to impress their leaders, which he pursues behind Dib's back while Dib develops a soft spot for the earth and it's magnificent specimens and wants it to become a preserve, protected from conquest or interference from the Irken Empire which would destroy everything unique and special about it.