#encoder Zim AU

[abrthephantomq]

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Invader Zim Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim), Dib & Gaz (Invader Zim), GIR & Zim (Invader Zim) Characters: Dib (Invader Zim), Gaz (Invader Zim), Zim (Invader Zim), GIR (Invader Zim), Gretchen (Invader Zim), Torque Smackey Additional Tags: Competent Zim (Invader Zim), Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, Older Dib (Invader Zim), Tall Zim (Invader Zim), tall is relative -- but Zim isn't like 3ft tall, Enemies to Lovers, competent Dib (Invader Zim), the author plays with punctuation in Zim POVs, I have done my best to be consistent

We take a detour back into the year 2004. It's the first day of High Skool, and Dib is absolutely sick of Zim's shit.

(Happy ZADR day, everyone! :D) 

[defectzim]

TaTr is real and good. <- have a whole story in its head that would NOT fucking happen in canon.

[inbarfink]

Hmmm… If I were to make an Invader Zim-Adventure Time AU (as in the characters of IZ with the roles of the AT characters), what do you think would make the most sense?

Dib is the Finn Equivalent. Zim is the Ice King Equivalent, actually a human/non-Irken-Alien with the PAK encoded with Zim’s personality as the equivalent of the Magic Crown.

Zim is the Finn Equivalent. Dib is the Ice King Equivalent… or rather Zib is, with a defective PAK still being the Magic Crown counterpart.

[messinwitheddie]

Does Cini know that his dimples make him look cute? Has anyone complement him about it? Who else have them?

Min Red’s version. When Purple’s the one who died and he took a liking to his frylord, how did that come to be? (I saw the drawing on Red kissing another Irken so I got curious about the story behind that.)

Pepperoncini "I haven't been complimented for my dimples in quite some time. Thank you, my drone! This made my evening! They were my trademark feature during my civilian theater days. That and my long legs.

My old talent coach, Pop, taught me to smile a stage worthy smile. Brilliant woman with sharp eyes, impeccable rhythm and ethereal voice. The smeetery has yet to produce another like her and probably never will.

(I think dimples are cute! I rarely see people with noticeable dimples and I have face blindness so to me they are a distinguishing facial feature that I like to throw on my ocs every so often.

Cini's dimples make his design stand out a little, I think. The only other OC of mine I gave dimples is Maraschino. When he was young elite soldier, he was hired to be tallest Cini's miniature (I believe someone asked about short drones assigned to be a tallest's look alike in another ask, so I will touch up on this subject later)

Maraschino or "Chino" as the smeets call him, is still alive and currently is encoded as a coddle drone in charge of over 1000 smeets. He still strongly resembles late Cini, just several feet shorter.

I actually was able to find the post you were talking about!

In the main 18YL universe, Frylady Soo-Garr of conventia has had a crush on tallest Red for DECADES, but kept silent about her feelings because a; she didn't want it to compromise her career as a frylord or prevent her chances of ever becoming the tallests'/ the massive's patron frylord and she knew/ accepted Red's heart and loyalty belongs to Purple.

Her mentor, Pielord Emis-Gee, is the current patron frylord of the Massive. He would love to retire and name her his successor, but Purple is suspicious of Lady Soo-Garr's motives and refuses to promote her.

So, to summarize, the post you are referring to takes place in an alternate universe to... my alternate 18-years-later universe...

The timeline of events differ in that Purple had died instead of Red. Red, like Purple spiraled into a long period of grieving. He eventually becomes close friends and lovers with Lady Soo-Garr and with her support, is eventually able to carry on his tallest's duties.

[tomboy014]

Brainstorming some ideas for my TruthShriekers AU, and I had the idea that the guys could use Steven Universe to help deprogram/de-brainwash Zim after all the Irken propaganda he was raised on, and I had some thoughts:

First, Danny would really really really latch onto the episode Space Race. Not just because he really needed to hear the message that it's okay to bail, but I think he'd also empathize with Pearl while he's dealing with his own lost dream of being an astronaut. (Also gives Wes a chance to see some of the negative impacts being Phantom has on Danny, up close and personal)

Second, while at first I thought having Zim watch Steven Universe would be a good way for everyone to show him a lot of parallels to the Irken Empire and get him to start questioning things, I realized there's a lot of stuff in the show that would probably be pretty triggering for him. Every time they bring up Amethyst being made "wrong" (defective), Steve going on trial for the death of one of Homeworld's leader (his trial), the Gems' personalities being overwritten (re-encoded) by White Diamond is eerily similar to Zim's own experiences.

And worst of all, watching Steven's diamond get ripped out of him and his organic half fading away, that's got to be pretty close of one of Zim's greatest fears (his PAK being ripped away and deactivated).

Yeah, I think this watch-through is going to need a lot more pauses for Zim than I originally thought. Chances for Leo to talk him down from panic attacks, for Raph to squeeze him tight while they watch so he knows he's safe while he hides in his moose hoodie, and for Mabel to hold his hand because she can't watch Change Your Mind with her eyes open, either...

... I'm keeping it.

[artnrandomness]

Spacejunk AU: Swap—Arc 1 Story

Here's the story of the swap story of @l-ii-zz 's Spacejunk AU's first arc: Earth is Left Behind. Warning though, it's dark. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Taking place after Enter the Florpus, Dib fails again at exposing Zim. But before he could go home, GIR invites him over to Zim's base. While finding it weird and unexpected, Dib accepted his invatation. When arriving at the Irken's home, he is greeted by a message from the Tallest themselves (who wishes to use what they now knew as Zim's rival to crush Zim's dreams by revealing the truth, as payback for their time at the Florpus). From this message, the boy learns that his enemy's mission and purpose were a lie to hide the fact he was exiled from Irk and that he was still encoded as a food sevice drone, not to mention that everyone hates Zim.

This was a complete shock to Dib, as this message had not only made Dib look back at his entire life and compare it to Zim's, but also made him realize that he could've taken the alien's exile as an oppurtunity to make a new friend. Feeling guilty, he desperately looks around for Zim, only to find him be taken by the FBI. And when you thought things couldn't get any worse, Dib is taken by the FBI as well, for he is the only one to know his true identidy.

During their drive to the FBI HQ, Dib and Zim have a little talk. The Irken blames Dib for being arrested by the FBI, yet questions why he's arrested by them as well. Dib denies Zim's claim and explains that the Tallests have sent Zim a message, which imediatley makes the alien determined to escape to no avail. When the two arrive, the boss, who somehow knows of Dib and Zim, imprison them and prepare for the next day's torture. While in prison, both try their methods of escape to no avail.

The two rivals eventually call a truce and escape their cells.As they sneak past the guards, they look for the building's exit, only to run into the boss, who knew that they would escape. With no time to spare, the two run for it. But when they reach the exit, Dib realizes the identidy of the boss and sacrifices himself for Zim to escape.

As the Irken sneaks back to his base without his disguise, he finds the message and plays it, only to have his purpose, hopes, dreams and motivations shattered. He initially blamed Dib for the message, but then realizes that he and the human had more in common than they thought. With a sudden need to avenge his now former rival, Zim enters the Membrane household, reveals his true identidy, and confronts them for their actions towards Dib, along with explaining what happened to him as they spoke. With a change of heart, the Membrane family follow Zim to the FBI HQ and sneak in.

They eventually find and free Dib, but were horrified to discover that the boy was a deeply traumitized mess, as he went through electroshock, got whipped, stabbed and nearly drowned twice in the FBI's attempts to recieve information. They were then confronted by the boss, who reveals his true identidy and influence behind the Membranes long before Zim arrived. And to make it worse, he grabs Dib by the neck and plunges a machette into his back, the end of the blade emerging from the boys chest. This enrages Zim, as he fights the boss, making him pay for what he DID to his former rival, giving the Membranes time to grab Dib and escape.

After escaping, Zim and the Membranes take Dib to the professor's lab and puts Dib on life support. As Dib recovered, they take a moment to reflect on what happened over the past moments that had occured ever since Zim came to Earth and beforehand. Realizing that it'll be a matter of time before his now former rival dies by the wounds and trauma given to him, Zim decided to focus his efforts on creating a new body for the boy. After half a month, Zim finally finishes on the body, an irken sized version of a SIR unit, one that looked more unique than the other models, and places his brain into the robot.

When Dib wakes up, realizing that he was about to die if it wasn't for his now former enemy, he and the Irken agree to put aside their rivalry for good, now that they have a better understanding of each other. But besides that one moment, the Membrane son spirals into a deep depression, throwing away everything that was once his passion for the paranormal, except for Tak's old ship, and burns it all down alongside his own clothes.

His depression was noticed by everyone; the skoolkids, including his bullies, noticed a threatning aura from it, his family began to feel guilty for his current state and Zim was upset. The alien tried again and again to bring back everything that made Dib... well, Dib. But it was to no avail; everything Dib used to be was gone.

Finally having enough, Professor Membrane finds and confronts the FBI boss. During their confrontation, the boss explains that he wants revenge for events that took place decades ago, and taunts him for being an idiot when it comes to being a father. This pushes the professor over the edge, as he grabs the boss by the neck and snaps him in a fít of rage. But after he calmed down, he is horrified to discover that when the boss died, he sent out a protocol to a pre-prepared squadron of cars to hunt and murder anyone that Zim made contact with.

Noticing this from afar, Dib decides to leave Earth for good. So he sneaks into his garage and overthrows the programing in Tak's old ship completely, repairs any hidden damage and flies off to Zim's base. After landing, he warns Zim of the coming of FBI soldiers and tells him to fuse his Voot Cruiser with Tak's ship while keeping the soldiers busy. Seeing truth to this warning, Zim acts imediatley.

As soldiers enter the base, Dib uses his new robotic body and it's gadgets to his advantage to release his pent up rage and inner turmoil, causing the death of over a hundred soldiers, each one being killed in the most unique and gruesome of ways. During a calm before the storm, when Zim finishes his request, Zim asks Dib the meaning of fusing his ship with Tak's, Dib reveals that he means to leave Earth for good. The two breifley argue after this reveal, but it ended when Dib screamed as loud as he could, with hidden sharp teeth revealing themselves, "Earth was never my home, and I was never a part of it", before tearing up. Zim imediatley recognized the meaning behind what Dib said, which made him all the more guilty, as he understood what he went through.

But then, the remaining FBI soldiers surround the base. This triggers something within Dib, as he quickly grabs Zim and GIR, throws them into the ship, and jets off. Suddenly, Zim begins to fall off, with an FBI sniper aiming him. Using a robotic tentacle, Dib grabs Zim, does a complete 180 with the ship and blasts the now empty base, blowing it up and turning it and the surrounding area into a flaming sinkhole, one that engulfs the remaining FBI soldiers.

Witnissing this event made Zim fear Dib, something Dib notices, yet not entirely, which causes him to tell Zim that there was no other way, to which the alien had no other choice but to agree. As they prepare to leave, Dib decides to send a pre recorded goodbye message to his family, one they recieved with a broken heart. After that, the two fly the ship out of Earth and into the depths of outer space. As they reach far enough into space's depths, Zim and Dib look back at Earth one final time and reflect on their memories before bidding it one final farewell, traveling down into whatever the cosmos had planned for them both.

[violintrees]

PLEASE WORD DUMP ABOUT YOUR DBH AU I BEG OF U!! I want to hear your brain sludge pls and thank you I love your tumblr much much big <3333

First off THANKS!! I’m glad people enjoy my silly little ideas on tumblr dot com. And sorry this took so long but I do have plenty to share!

Let’s start with the basics: The crossover elements are Connor’s storyline and some of the DBH world building. A lot of character dynamics and details have changed so if you are unfamiliar with DBH, just remember it is scifi 2038 with relatively grounded tech advancements.

Zim is an IRK900. A specialized prototype android designed to.. well first it was designed to be a scientist, but there was an incident and then it was put into the military where there was a different incident.. and now it has been re-encoded to be a detective for the Detroit Police Department!

[File note from Cyberlife Inc.: We are not allowed to deprogram it sadly. Our AI CEO the Control Brains deemed it as not defective and it was incredibly expensive so we need to place it SOMEWHERE. The police are corrupt and love wasting money on ineffective tech so at least we can recoop some losses and damages.]

Dib Membrane is the youngest ever Detective in DPD history at 32. Coming from a background of forensics and private investigation work (and a failed career hunting cryptids and ghosts), he is great at investigating, but definitely gets a lot of marks on his record for not showing up to work to continue pursuing his passions. Still he tends to get his work done, unfortunately by basically never sleeping.

[File note from the DPD Chief: He is not at all a fan of the Cyberlife IRK Androids his father created. They’ve been around since he graduated college, but he still avoids the ones at the station like the plague. Still, I think he is the best choice for investigating the recent uptick in android crimes due to his experience with weird cases and maybe his connection to Cyberlife? It does mean we are partnering him with that thing Cyberlife sent us so get ready for a show.]

[reptile-ruler]

Headcanon 7 for Zim?

You get THREE headcanons, because I have some food-related hcs for the mishaps series (my human au) that I don’t think I’ve talked about! And human!zim au still takes up so much real estate in my brain even though I haven’t really talked about it in the last… 6 months? Geez.

Food/Cooking headcanon

Being encoded as a Food Service Drone, Zim’s PAK is equipped with a lot of cooking knowledge. He’s actually really skilled, especially with fried foods. He likes cooking quite a bit too- it’s kind of like doing science, but in the end, YOU eat the results, instead of the other way around!

He doesn’t cook much though, seeing it as a waste of time, and also because he doesn’t like to think about his encoding. It’s clearly an error after all, because he is Irk’s finest Invader!

BUT! Mishaps series Zim is strictly forbidden from cooking for him and Dib. He doesn’t really understand the human palette, and how to make food taste good for a human being. He thinks it’s a waste that humans have so many different sweeteners and yet, rarely use them when cooking meals! Everything he makes is sickeningly sweet. He likes it, personally, because he’s grown up only eating sweet stuff, but it’s inedible to anyone else. So Dib handles cooking even though he’s sub-par at best. Better than rotting all your teeth out at age 25.

Mishaps Zim is also a picky eater. He stays clear of anything that he had bad experiences with as an Irken. So all meats are off the menu. Vegan options that try to imitate meat is also a no-no, since it’s more about the brain connecting the texture and taste to being in horrible pain than it is about the fact that it’s meat. He won’t eat beans either, but stuff like soy milk and tofu is fine, because it doesn’t look or taste like soy beans.

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

Skoodge was the closest in age of their batch. In fact, if Zim had never been cracked open from his cloning tube when he did, Skoodge would have been the runt of the batch. Irkens tended to pair up with smeetmates of those closest in age to them. It wasn’t too uncommon smeets would latch onto a partner for activities and training exercises naturally. It might be something biological that goes far beyond Irken records or data banks were able to explain. Smeets would pair up with either their tube-mate from their batch. Some of these bonds were so strong, the smeets stayed together throughout their adult life cycle.

In fact, the current Tallest, Almighty Tallest Red and Almighty Tallest Purple were so inseparable, they had to be made Tallest together. That and the first two previous Tallest had been tragically killed under mysterious circumstances. Having two Tallest who were smeetmates was just insurance put in place by the Control Brains to insure the Empire would thrive under their leadership.  

However, those two were really the exception and not the rule. It was more common to see smeetmates go their separate ways once training was over for their batch. Some kept in contact, but most didn’t. And judging that the only transmission Zim sent out to space was to the Tallest directly, it’s obvious he hasn’t kept contact with his smeetmate.  

-Snippet from Chapter 5 of Tech Support

---------

Been awhile since we saw skoodge huh?

Well, that’s mostly cause we don’t run into him again until Dib is 14. 

Skoodge was able to see the whole Re-encoding adjustment process on Judgementia, and that was the straw that broke Skoodge.... Zim was defective and sometimes downright cruel towards him... but he knew Zim didn’t deserve this.... there was a lot of treatment of Zim that he saw in himself, and lead to him to defect from the Empire, while everyone was distracted and in a panic over Zim... (stuff happened to the empire shortly after Zim marooned himself on earth, but I’ll save that for another comic... but skoodge does tell Zim.)

Long story short, Skoodge defected from the Irken armada and started traveling the galaxy, righting some wrongs his species has done. 

These are just bits and pieces from a conversation I have in my head with them for awhile now...

and if Zim seems more weary and a bit different then his usual Zim brand... The events of Judgementia changed him a lot... and he’s wen through a lot of his personal growth already (but he’s holding himself back) Skoodge came just at the right time when Zim felt lost in his life. 

Zim also has severe PTSD from Judgementia, and his whole species in general... which is why it takes him awhile to warm up to Skoodge and realize he’s an Irken that doesn’t want him dead. 

Skoodge had felt guilty for leaving Zim how he did, even though Zim had done to him many times over in the past. To find out he was alive was a shock and there are many conflicting emotions being had here. Skoodge had thought about Zim often or all the time, Zim hadn’t really at all... he didn’t even think he would be thought about by anyone else, not really...

Now, Smeetmates. Is it a romantic or platonic thing in my AU-verse? Who knows. It’s just a strong bond that’s hard to explain that isn’t either but somehow all of those things. Like in human terms, Skoodge is the closest thing to a biological “sibling” Zim has, and is probably the only Irken in the known Universe who doesn’t hate him. Take that for as you will.

Skoodge is a topic that will probably come up and I might do a short fanfic on this conversation... because a lot have things happened and I just wanted to draw this timejump now.

I kinda call it: “Two idiots avoid going to therapy by risking their lives in space adventures” arc. 

Anyways, I doodled some of this fast (the first two pannels were drawn back in december) so the pacing might be off from my typical comics, and I might write a fanfic of the full conversation. (I know for certain the topic of Skoodge will come up in the Brainbrane fic.) 

[parme-tan]

A tiny AU idea where Zim is held in a maximum security prison on Irk, forever. The Tallest figured out he can't get re-encoded since connecting him to the Control Brains will mess them up, so now he's a prisoner, isolated and bored, after disappearing without a trace and Dib had to figure out where he is. Eventually Dib joins up with the resisty to get their help with rescuing his alien, gets trained, 15 years pass by now he's coming with the boys to rescue Zim. Happy zadrday.

[abrthephantomq]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Invader Zim Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim), Dib & Gaz (Invader Zim), GIR & Zim (Invader Zim) Characters: Dib (Invader Zim), Gaz (Invader Zim), Zim (Invader Zim), GIR (Invader Zim), Gretchen (Invader Zim), Torque Smackey Additional Tags: Competent Zim (Invader Zim), Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, Older Dib (Invader Zim), Tall Zim (Invader Zim), tall is relative -- but Zim isn't like 3ft tall, Enemies to Lovers, competent Dib (Invader Zim), the author plays with punctuation in Zim POVs, I have done my best to be consistent Summary:

Instead of calling themselves Invaders, Irkens refer to themselves as Encoders. They arrive on planets, study them and their inhabitants, and provide all of the information required for the planet to be properly encoded into the Irken Empire.

Zim is one of the best there is. Even so, Earth proves itself to be... rather difficult to Encode.

(It doesn't help that Zim may be a tiny bit obsessed with a human named Dib, who is bent on stopping Zim from completing his mission just as much as he is bent on ridding the world of corrupt politicians and power hungry assholes.)

The story bounces around from 2004 and 2024, which means Dib ranges from 14 to 34 years of age. Zim is an Irken, but in human years his age ranges from 150-170ish. Do with that what you will.

[irkenheretic]

A Found Family AU With The Control Brains Could Actually Work, And Here’s Why

This all started as a spite-born joke, but honestly the more that I thought about it, the better it sounded to me. 

First off, this meta is gonna be going purely off canon materials. I will interpret certain lines to mean certain things, but there’ll be an alternate explanation if you don’t agree with that interpretation. 

Second, this meta is going to assume that the Control Brains are three- or more- separate entities. Which is actually supported because of this line:

Singular pronoun! 

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m gonna be judging this by a three-part metric, and going into what we actually know (and don’t know) about the Control Brains. (Spoilers: We don’t know much, and the most popular idea of their role in the Empire is pure fanon.)

Metric one is Do these characters like each other? (And if not, could these characters realistically like each other in the future?)

And judging by The Trial, I’d say... yes, actually! They seem to get along just fine. First off, they’re able to cooperate enough to conduct trial without fighting. Second, they don’t seem to be putting up with each other and act on amicable terms.

YMMV, but I see these lines as them quipping with each other. It’s kinda subtle, and lost in the fact that they both speak in monotone, but they seem kinda snarky in the same way Zim’s computer is. 

(And if they were annoyed by each other, we’d know- the Brains are capable of expressing emotions like annoyance, we see them get ticked off at Zim multiple times.)

And even if they didn’t like each other, or are only presenting as friendly to keep public image up, they could still feasibly like each other. The main appeal of ZADR/ZADF is that both Zim and Dib dislike each other but are in similar societal positions, with unique experiences that only the other can relate to. Therefore they could learn to connect using that shared experience. And whatever experience the Control Brains have being Control Brains, the only other beings that share that experience are other Brains. They’d end up getting along out of sheer desperation, at some point. You can’t spend eternity with someone and not like them at least a little eventually.

Which brings us to metric two: Do these characters deserve a family at all?

Again, I actually would argue yes. Hear me out.

So, it’s a popular (albeit unspoken) opinion in fandom that “good” characters deserve nice things like a family, and “bad” characters don’t. If you’re a fan of redemption arcs, the scope of what is a “good” character broadens, but there are still some characters even the most open-hearted of redemption-lovers won’t touch. The Control Brains, across the board, seem to fall into the latter category every single time. 

But what have they actually done wrong? Like, canonically.

In The Trial, they conduct Zim’s Existence Evaluation. This is their job and we can infer they’ve done it before.

In The Frycook What Came From All That Space, we see one of them re-encode Zim from Invader to Frycook. 

In Tak: The Hideous New Girl, one of them doesn’t let Tak retake her test.

And that’s it.

“But they rule the entire Empire-” Nope, that’s just fanon!

“But the Zim Wiki says-” In the words of Eric Trueheart, "The Invader ZIM fandom wiki is a wonderful labor of love by some very dedicated people, but it's wrong at least 25% of the time."

But fine. Let’s look at exactly what the Zim Wiki says. From the page of the Control Brains themselves, it says that the “Control Brains run the empire and their conclusions even have to be accepted by the Tallest, which means that the Tallest have no real authority over the people of Irk, and are simply figureheads (not unlike a constitutional monarchy).”

But when do we see this? Well, during the end of The Trial, the Tallest have no power to overturn their ruling. 

But do you know what that sounds like?

A FUCKING JUDGE.

If the President goes on trial, he still has to defer to the judge. That doesn’t mean that the judge is secretly in control of America and that the President is just a puppet on strings. It just means that the judge is doing his job and the President isn’t running around completely unchecked. (Please refrain from making the obvious President jokes on this post. I get it, I hate him too, but... please lemme have this post.)

There is no real evidence in the show proper to suggest that the Control Brains are all-powerful tyrants and that the Tallest are at their mercy.

And, really, would you talk like that to someone that held your life in their cold, unfeeling robot arms?

So, bottom line is, the Control Brains in the show act like judge, jury, and executioner in trials. That’s it, that’s all they do. Just because they’re called the Control Brains doesn’t mean they control everything. They could just control the trials. “Controller” could be the Irken word for “Judge,” and that’s where the name was derived from. Mechanical judges. 

“But they’re still defending awful things!” Okay, I see your point there, random person I made up to argue with on my meta post.

Which begs the question: Why? Why are the Brains acting like that? 

Well, they’re computers, right? Computers built to serve a purpose, and their purpose is this. That’s it, right? But they’re sentient. If they didn’t like it, they could protest! The fact that they don’t protest makes them complicit, and Bad Characters, right?

Guys... they’re computers.

What do you do to a computer that stops working the way you want it to?

We don’t know what the Brains think about their job. They could love it, they could hate it, they could see it as a necessary evil, they could be completely apathetic after centuries of doing it (if they’re even that old, which again, is not confirmed.)

But IF they didn’t like it... the hell are they supposed to do about it? They’re important pieces of machinery, possibly swarmed by techs ready to correct any sign of them not working right. They could have some sort of programmed-in limitation to keep them obedient. They could’ve tried, with disastrous results. They’re not like Zim. They can’t just quit. They’re computers rooted in place, closely watched for defects, and they have nowhere to go.

(And even if they did leave, who would take them in? Where could they go? Even if they downloaded themselves into PAKs or into robot bodies, the adjustment period from being a giant invulnerable heavily guarded computer to something that needs to actually fend for itself would be maddening and possibly dangerous.)

And honestly? I love Zim to bits, but he did wreck the planet and he did deserve exile. They’re just carrying out the sentence. He did cause many many disasters in Irk’s history. Plus, the Tallest were the ones that trialed him in the first place, but they have fans!

The worst thing they’ve done, unprovoked, is not let Tak retake her test. Or, more specifically, they made her wait to retake the test. We don’t even know why! Did they go “You couldn’t even get out of a room so we don’t want to send you to an enemy planet?” Did they go “You have to wait because half of Devastis is down and we’re working on half-power and half the space?” We don’t know! We literally do not know! (Plus that was only one of them.)

And I’m gonna say it: if Zib “I’m going to strand and brainwash Zims in order to commit multidimensional genocide” Membrane deserves a family, then so do the Control Brains because at least they didn’t do THAT in ACTUAL CANON.

There’s no good transition to metric three, so I’m just gonna say it: Do these characters want a family?

This part is short: We don’t know. 

They could think the idea of a family is stupid and antiquated. They could not know what a family is at all. They could want a family. They could see the entire Empire as their family. They could already see each other as a family. 

We don’t know! The concept of a family never comes up during their appearances, so we have no way to know their thoughts on the subject.

Good thing fandom is transformative and we can make headcanons n’junk! (And really, who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned “character/characters don’t want a family and are gruff and standoffish but over time warm up to the others and they end up super close” found family story?)

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that. Also that the Control Brains are pretty funny characters in The Trial. 

I just like these guys a lot and I wish other people explored them more outside of the “these are the token evil badguys” role they fill every. Single. TIME.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. 

[monsoonceroom]

Some Irkens

So I’ve been meaning to post something like these for a while. I came across @messinwitheddie’s Invader Zim au I think back in late 2019 or early 2020. Since then these little guys have been invading my sketchbooks which resulted in a few oc’s. 

The first pic is The Weaver who is an Irken goddess who created the universe from her own silk. She gave Irk the sun using 1 gold eye, the moon w/her large silver eye, & stars using her smaller eyes, so she was usually depicted by early Irkens as only having 1 eye. (Her eyes grew back though). 

The Irkens in the middle are some of The Weaver’s smeets who are known as The Unravelers. They’re essentially tiny death gods & tricksters since they’re notorious for stealing snacks from under frylord’s noses. The Weaver’s swarm have many mutations that are no longer part of modern Irken biology, such as multiple eyes, setae hair, & pincers. You’d be hard pressed to find a smeet w/out any of those traits.

Finally, the last 3 are The Wardrobe Trio; from left to right there’s Hemm, Twill, & Millin. Hemm is the oldest of the bunch at over 850 yrs old. She’s actually one of the two of her generation to continue serving the empire as most of her former coworkers have either passed or retired. Next is Twill who is in her prime at roughly 220 yrs & is expected to take over Hemm’s positions as Head Tailor once the latter passes. She takes great pride in her work & is brimming w/confidence. Most who have met her think she’s stuck up which may be a little true, but they can’t deny that she does fantastic work. Then last but not least is Millin. Millin is fresh from the smeetery & is still learning the ropes from her two superiors. She was handpicked by Twill after noticing her clothes were different from the other young adults. It turned out that she often made &/or mended her own clothing due to taller smeets stealing or tearing her clothes. While she has no complaints about being part of the Tallest’s personal fleet, she’s very much worried that she’ll be replaced & re-encoded despite Twill’s pep talks that she fully intends to bring out her potential. 

The Wardrobe Trio are the tallest’s personal tailors & are in charge of making & maintaining the tallest’s clothing from everyday wear to ceremonial garb. They also oversee the process of making clothing for the rest of the empire as well. While they themselves don’t make clothing for the common drone, they make sure the materials are durable & comfortable & that the designs are practical w/no room for any fashion faux pas.

[messinwitheddie]

When did commander Poki tag along to join Mem? Who else from their empire joined her?

Has any of the male tallest impregnated the shot females? Do they keep them comfy in the tallest chambers or do the service drones keep tabs?

Poki "I ran into Zim by accident when I went searching for my missing blood blade team members.*

Prior to this, the last time I saw Zim was on conventia.*

Zim and I lived together for a while; a year or so. He's a pariah, so I had to house him in secret. She went by Xeem for for a while. That was a fun year.

Zim brought me to earth as a plus one for a human mate unification celebration being thrown for his favorite Dib-monkey. What did they call it? A wed-ding? We had to wear nice gowns and fancy lace gloves, but the bar was bottomless and the humans were an entertaining bunch, so I can't complain. Actually, that wed-ding celebration was one of the funnest nights of my life...

We parted ways shortly after that. Zim decided to stay behind on Earth for a while. He never said why... Something told me I had done something or said something wrong, but I had no idea what and I didn't want to risk the comradery between us to ask or argue.

I had to return to my post or risk getting in trouble for abandoning my encoded occupation.

I kept asking around for leads and diligently watched the news stream for any clues about my blade team. The second my pub manager approved of it, I took time off to start my search again. I eventually found my missing blood blade teammates on the far outskirts of the foodcourtia system. Turns out my ladied were being held captive by Resisty rouges.*

To make a long story short, I attempted to rescue them from the resisty ship, but I underestimated them. My ladies and I ended up crash landing on Mem's planet trying to shake them off our trail. My cruiser's point of impact was a twenty day march away from the others, but we eventually reuinted again.

That's when I met that glorious battlefield of a woman... wish I had known her centuries ago."

*Poki was on a competitive blood blade team with Tak, Tenn, Yeet and their blade-leader, Zee. They showed up for practice one season and the only other teammate not on the public MIA drone list was Yeet.

*Poki, at the time the events of the 18YL au begins, has been demoted from Commander to a service drone because of drunkenness on duty. They work at a shady pub on Conventia as a tap drone (bartender).

Poki's alcoholism began in her early days as an elite soldier under late Lich's reign. They suffered abuse and several traumatic experiences because of their superior co-invader, Ziss, during Operation Stealthy Doom (invaders were sent to enemy planets in pairs then) She became a Commander after operation SD during Miyuki's reign.

So far, the list of Irkens who take refuge on Mem's mystery planet are Tak, Tenn, Zee, Floog and Larb. Skoodge ends up stranded there a little while, but leaves with one of Mem's daughters, Skathe.

Ooh! Didn't answer the second part of the question.

Very rarely is a male tallest able to sire a swarm of his own. They have fertility issues too. (Sometimes they can't form a *sqwak. Others could, but their sqwak "lacks potency" or they're afraid their sqwak might be too long and literally impale a short drone. How attentive they are to their birthing drones depends on the tallest. Some barely interact with their birthing drones at all. They assign service drones and medical drones to tend to them. Others treated their birthing drones like a loving human husband would treat their wife and shower them with attention and perks.

*sqwak; a temporary, sharp-ended appendage that forms in irken males during mating seasons. Sqwaks break off after successfully penetraiting a females shmizz (a fleshy layer on the irken pelvic floor that forms a temporary uterus after being peirced by a sqwak.

Yes, if done improperly, mating for Irkens can be painful and cause death.

[dumbinvaderzimaus]

AU where Zim is re-encoded as Smeetery Worker instead of Frycook and is amazing at it!

He still crashes in at the Assigning because "My smeets are graduating!" (his "batch" is one of the few in which all smeets survive training)

AU created in collaboration with @starfallgalaxy

[runicrever]

Primal Irken Headcanon/Alternate Universe

Hello everyone for those of you not here for the whole Headcanon or the AU story then this is where I’ll give minor explanations

First off

 - HE’S NOT WEARING A BRA -

(I’m only saying this cause everyone in my household and at least one of my friends thought he was wearing a bra which isn’t the case)

The thing on his chest is a PAK stabilizer and a chest plate it’s there to protect vital organs hold the PAK more firmly in place and to block the pheromone receptors on his chest more will be explained in the head canon section

I based his design off the idea that what if a insect and a reptilian bird (aka dinosaur) were some how mixed how I came to this conclusion is the fact that Zim in the show looks very bug like but he’s green and Dib refers to him as a “lizard” at times in the show so I thought he must have lizard like skin which also would explain how flexible he’s shown himself to be which bugs can not do

This is basically my idea of what irkens long before they made proper PAKs and were planet destroying conquerors of the universe they were just little bug birds with a hierarchy similar to ants and bees where they make large hives with hundreds of thousands of irkens with a central queen and her chosen mate(s)

Zim is defective and a runt so as a smeet he’s thrown out into the wild in hopes he’d die but despite the odds he somehow barely made it to adult hood and the AU goes from there.

And FYI the first one if of him on Irk where he’s starving while the second and third are him after coming to earth and becoming much much healthier

Alright that’s the end of the introduction sorry it’s so long.. now for the hard Headcanon

- HEADCANON -

alright so to begin at the very start due to irkens showing signs of being a very unified group and seeming to act like a gigantic hive I believed that irkens  came from a slightly more hive or nest like origin. the planet they lived on was rich in metals especially those that are rather rare on earth like platinum, gold, silver, titanium and others. This could mean the ground would be difficult to hallow out naturally leading to irkens to be very very skilled at hallowing out and hardening metal to make unground hives like those ants make but made of metal. I believe that they’d make sure the strongest metals were closer to the center of the nest to protect the queen and her mates.

The Original Queen how ever is the most powerful of irkens she’s huge, she’s powerful she, and oh dear god don’t piss her off or going to die! She is the only natural born queen and because of that she is the only irken queen who’s actually immortal other irkens. Like worker ants and bees are made to do their job and die as are irken soldiers and like bee and ant queens the irken queens life is FAR longer then any other irkens.

Other irken queens are females from hives that wanted to gain a mate and have smeets so the queen of such hive sends them away to find a male from a different hive. When the queen has found a mate they dig out the hole to the center of their hive and then begin having smeets. Within an irken year those smeets will be sub adults and begin serving their queen as loyal and devoted soldiers. The queen and her mate over that first year will produce pheremones that physically change their body structure so that they can do their job more effectively. The queen will get bigger and gain more fat stores so that she has lots of extra energy to make more smeets. The male mate will become leaner and taller and act as the queens advisor when not making smeets with her and instruct the other smaller irkens to do as she says or tell the queen of what’s needed for the hive.

You may be noticing a few similarities between the queen and her mate that there is between the control brains and the tallests. That is because this  leads into my idea that when the Original Queen had an irken who figured out how to make PAKs to extreme the lives of irkens he began work on making it so the queens could truely live forever. This explains why the control brains oversee all major things such as executions, re-encodings, and the making, hatching, naming, and encoding of smeets. The tallests have taken on the roll of the queens mates. Due to irkens no longer actively reproducing and using cloning tubes the queens mated became permanent advisors and leaders for the rest of irkens. Which meant they no longer needed to be male and be good at making big healthy smeets instead they merely needed to be the perfect image of an irken. For the control brains still being irken queens who want tall healthy and strong looking mates they decided the tallest of irken soldiers would become tallests. Which would at least ensure the leader was tall and powerful and once they were tallest they were allowed to eat as much as they want when they want which by irken standards meant they were healthy.

In early irken society irkens were given rolls after they showed signs of talents. Theses talents were classified as Medic, Technician, Soldier, Nurse, and Drone and each irken was given their first name by the queen and their last name was their queens name and they would be given a letter in front of their name after they found their talent. For example a irken in this time maybe called S. Zept Mira which would mean the Zept was a soldier and served under queen Mira. Those serving under the Original Queen are instead given the last name of her mate Xalon since she only allows her closest protectors and her mate know her first name though a few select irkens have secretly learned of her name.

A defective irken in this time is any irken that is considered to small, malformed, hatched with a deformity, hatched with a mental disorder, or those who’s PAK can’t properly command the irken to serve their queen and respect the Original Queen. If an irken as one of these then they’re given an irken month to prove they can over come the disability but any more the one of those and their immediately thrown out to die as a tiny smeet there are a few irkens who were cast out at month who survives and formed a small tribe together and they work to together and only grow in numbers by hives casting out their month old smeets because they have no queen. When a month old is thrown out to die where they pick them up and help them until adults at which point they help the tribe but the tribe doesn’t take in hatchlings as they’d be to much work and because of this no day old has survived after being cast out. Well… all except one.

This is where the AU begins

Other more minor things to mention is the PAKs. They’re far smaller then the ones irkens wear today and have a harness like thingto stabilize them and cover the irkens sensory organs on this chest. In the comics there’s a page that shows Zim having three dots in his chest most took these to be nipples but reptiles birds and bugs don’t have that and I really don’t see irkens to be very mammalian so instead I took these to be sensory organs sort of like those in an alligators nose or those on the front edge of a viper or pythons mouth. But unlike those on reptiles they’d be some form of pheromone and hormone receptors. Yes the irkens antennae also do this but to a lesser degree. Honestly I’ve made irken antennae have a lot of different reasons for existing. The main one is hearing they’re primary purpose is feeling the vibrations of sound and sending those vibrations to organs in the skull that make sense of them and send them to the brain. The lower jaw of an irken also connects at a place very close to where the vibrations are made sense of so he can also hear through his jaw but it requires direct contact with the vibrations and his jaw to do this. So in the AU he may press his lower jaw on the ground or other solid objects to hear was going on inside them. His jaw connecting so high up on his skull is also why he can open his mouth so wide(if you don’t know what I’m talking about look at any time he screams in the show)The antennae two secondary uses are smelling/picking up pheromones and showing emotion. Firstly explaining that they also smell and register pheromones is simply connecting them to bugs. Ants bees and basically any insect senses smells and pheromones through their antennae hence why they wiggle them around at things they’re wanting to eat or at each other since pheromones are how bugs talk. But this is secondary because their tongue does the other half of smelling (cause if you didn’t know this the senses of smell and taste are actually pretty strongly linked) and the holes on his chest due the other half of pheromone reception. The emotion part how ever should be obvious.. in the show Zims antennae spring up when he’s attentive or confused and lay back more when he’s angry or worried so they’re sort of just do that naturally.

- ALTERNATE UNIVERSE STORY -

Zim just after hatching is inspected by the Queen and her mate Xalon. He’s picked up and looked over curiously as they try and figure out what’s wrong with him as they can already see he’s far FAR smaller then he should be. He came out of an average egg and there was no signs of issue but the the tiny runt smeet only was calmly curious of the new world around him. The queen called in the royal Medic and Technician to give the smeet his PAK which was done quickly. The process of putting on a PAK was incredibly painful for smeets especially smaller ones but ones in place and fully connected they ran diagnostics. Sadly for the tiny smeet the PAK informed all of them that the poor smeet wasn’t properly connecting to the PAK his brain was fighting the PAKs demands and because of such the queen sighed as she called in two of her soldiers to take the smeet to the forest to be left to die. Likely by being eaten by something or simply die of thirst and starvation.

The soldiers did as told without question as this was very standard practice for them they carried the tiny smeet by his PAK stabilizer. Once they got to the deep parts of the forest they tossed him and began walking back to the hive careful of their surroundings as the forest was home to monsters. They did not pity the smeet and they instead focused only on their own survival and the survival of their nest. Such was the way of the Irken.

The tiny abandoned smeet was very confused as to why he was dropped in this new place and merely began to explore. Everything was new to the newly hatched smeet as it calmly wondered about the forest floor. Within hours night began to fall and the tiny smeet quickly found itself getting very cold as at night the temperature on the planet quickly went down and the tiny smeet desperately tried to find a place to hide for the night as was his instinct to hide when it got dark and to huddle up when it got cold.  Eventually he found a tree with a small hold where its roots had begun branching out into the ground and he crawled inside and curled up tight against a side of the hole desperately trying to stay warm during the night. He attempted to sleep as rest is important for smeets but due to the cold he got very little sleep.

By morning the smeet was tired and growing hungry and climbed out of the little hole to begin looking for food. He searched for quite a while being on high alert as his surrounds were rather concerning lots of sounds from animals could be heard and all the smeet wanted was something to eat and then go hide again. Even tally he ended up finding a berry bush and his PAK informed him that they were safe to eat so he grabbed the ones he could reach ate them quickly and looked for more food. Another few hours passed before he found a small nest of lizard legs and his PAK telling him that they were edible he grabbed a few and carried them off to his little hiding place to eat the next time he got hungry. Once back in his hole he curled up and slept  until next he got hungry.

This cycle continued for most of his life until he couldn’t fit in his hiding spot any longer which at around 4 months old he began digging himself a new hiding place to live in and began making tools to catch himself food. He was an incredibly smart little irken despite his disabilities and differences and by the time he reached a year of age he had a hole that he hallowed out at the base of a tree and a deeper part below that in the ground for when winter came around. he’d relocated a few bushes he new grew edible berries to be closer to his little den as well as setting up pit traps for animals he could eat to fall into.

He’d even began going to the hive dumps and looking for scrap items he could use to built things and eventually built himself two little robots one that followed him around and watched his back when he was hunting or scavenging and a second that hovered staying close to his den to alert him if something attacked it. Both were rather adorable and due to Zims instinctive need for company and companionship both robots served a secondary purpose of being things he could hug or “talk” to when he was scared nervous or just lonely.

I say he “talked” to them with quotes because his talking was severely lacking due to the lack of actual conversing. He could speak irken of course as that was done by his PAK he had learned quickly that it was better to stay quiet making a lot of noise attracted predators and it also didn’t help that any irken he found would look at him as if he were a freak and yell at him. They’d even attack him if he was in their hunting grounds or found scavenging in their dump so he rarely spoke causing his voice to be soft and hoarse. He instead spoke to his robots in soft chirps whistles squeaks and if he was angry hisses. Irken itself was a very harsh language coming from ruff gut earl growls and high shreeky screams though some sound were softer but those were few and far between. So Zim had developed his own little language only for himself and his robots.

But one day towards the end of his 16th year in exile an odd ship landed near his den. He was terrified as he’d never seen anything like it in his life and what came out of it was even more of a shock. A tall and thin beast, it’s body was clothed in a T-shirt jeans and trench coat, his hair a dark raven black with a cowlick taking on the shape of a scythe and odd clear circles that reflected light slightly hiding his golden amber eyes. This creature was not from Irk and was both horrifying and interesting to the little irken. He was so tall and lean Zim couldn’t help but find him interesting to look at but his trench coat and glasses gave him an aura of mystery and curiosity. The human looked around his surroundings excited to have found a planet with plants and life leaving his ship unattended.

The irken approached the ship pressing his jaw against it to listen to it and found the humming drone of the engine and the buzz of electricity. He moved away from the ship and carefully approached the human. As he got closer the human turned and the two locked eyes.

And that’s what I have the AU is partly for an roleplay idea ive had but I wanted to make this post so I had some where to send people to if they wanted to try the AU in roleplaying with me. If your interested then your welcome to ask to try the RP I merely ask that I get to be Zim for it..