#sorry i should be tagging this nonsense i just forget lolll

[1nvad3rz1m]

The funny thing is that I expected zagr to be most popular ship in the fandom, when I joined, because "my enemy's sister", "my brother's enemy" and I thought zadr was gonna be some underground crackship or something. I mean I wasn't exactly wrong with zagr, because from what I've seen it was the most popular for a while in the past, but zadr ended up overtaking later? Correct me if I'm wrong.

I was also suprised by the ship discourse, because Zim wouldn't have a healthy relationship with anybody as he is now, he needs a LOT of therapy/development, to get even remotely close, which people can write for any ship, so I didn't get why some shippers acted like they were allowed to give Zim development/be out of character/just ignore huge parts of his character to make the ship work (like his hatred for humanity, and every other species that isn't Irken, like it doesn't matter how old you think he is, he still views them as below him, or how he is infamous within his own kind for a good reason and he treats them disposable if that's what benefits him at the moment), but saying people with their notps can't do that. Like I expected that while the community having different ship-preferences, but they stick together, because they all go against the canon of the least romancy show in existense, but I guess nope. I have seen somebody defending this by saying that: "Well my ships are not as bad as the other ships." From whose perspective? Because everybody has a different idea about that. Even if they are right, that's what it sounds like to me:

Mom: "I can't believe you got a D!"

Kid: "But mooooooom, other people got an F!"

Like I can't take this argument seriously, and I'm not sorry about it.

zagr is/was really popular but tbh i think zadrs always been top dog in terms of like...long term dedication i tried looking at google analytics but since the terms are so vague im not sure hoooow reliable they are

blue is zadr red is zagr dating back to 2004. i guess youre not wrong though but idk if zadr really took over so much as zagr ended up dying out. this is also only 2004 and on though so make of that what you will. something to note about zagr is that im willing to wage a guess that it was everyones first introduction to invader zim (a lot of old zagr art is based on old emo/goth/scene aesthetics of the time) leading to it being searched more but thats just a theory. zadr outranks zagr by about 10k deviations on deviantart but that could still be credited to zagr just...dying out over time. idk!

as for the zim thing i think its less so zim being unhealthy and moreso the age debacle when jhonen decided to come and gunk up long cemented fandom interpretation for...some reason. though i do think thats a part of it because when silly discourse was happening people tried to alternatively ship dib with other like-aged humans (torque, dipper, etc etc) and it was very sanitized...undiblike. it was somewhat related to the overall fucked-up-ness of zadr but mostly the age lol.

there was a definite air of hypocrisy about what was acceptable and what wasnt because during this like..drama people tried to promote membrane and zim instead all the while membrane fully believed zim was one of dibs school aged friends so IDK it was a weird time to be here!!