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random-iz-stuff · 2 years

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Headcanons about Recap Kid because I reread the comics and contracted brain rot (aka me giving a character that was never meant to have lore an overdose of lore):

Putting this under a cut so you aren’t forced to read my insane ramblings about one of the most obscure and least known characters in Invader Zim. I’m not kidding when I say insane ramblings. I think I lost my mind.

Also some comic spoilers because I talk about some events in the comics.

Just in case you don’t know, this is Recap Kid:

They are a character exclusive to the comics that informs the reader about what happened in the previous issues or the original show. They are usually seen in an empty void disconnected from the rest of the Invader Zim universe, but they have been shown within the actual universe interacting with stuff.

They are also completely aware of the fourth wall and are basically a stand in for the average Invader Zim Superfan.

There is no information about them anywhere whatsoever. So I gave them some and now I feel like like Victor Frankenstein reanimating the dead while yelling “ITS ALIVE!”.

Headcanons:

Recap Kid isn’t human. Their name isn’t “Recap Kid” either.

Recap Kid belongs to a species known as “Recaps”. Recaps are a group of multiversal travellers that watch over certain universes, watching it progress while also making sure that the universe they’re assigned to isn’t destroyed by anything.

Recap Kid is also a child by Recap standards. They’re a Recap and they’re a Kid. A “Recap Kid” if you will. Their real name is completely unpronounceable.

Recaps are assigned universes when they reach a certain age and are given the job of watching over it and protecting it without directly interfering with anything. Stopping things that would damage or destroy large parts of their assigned universes by nudging things in the right direction without being seen. A bit like the Gman from half life if they weren’t allowed to directly speak to people.

Not every universe has a Recap watching it, but that doesn’t mean that the universe is doomed or anything. Having a Recap watch over your universe isn’t required, but is heavily recommended.

The universe where the show and enter the florpus happens doesn’t have a Recap watching it and everything turned out fine. (A Recap was sent out to fix the florpus hole though). This is an example of a universe that doesn’t really need a Recap watching it. Where the lack of a Recap is fine.

Zib’s universe also didn’t have a Recap watching it, and it all went horribly wrong. If a recap had been assigned to Zib’s universe, they would have been able to stop Zib from firing his empire destroying weapon that collapsed the universe or at least sabotage it so it wouldn’t work properly, because that’s their literal job. But no Recaps were assigned there and now it’s a lost cause.

There is one main, unbreakable rule for taking care of your assigned universe as a Recap:

Never directly interfere with things. If you must interfere, do so from the sidelines and never let your presence be known.

So when protecting the assigned universe from threats, a Recap can do things like manipulate people into doing things for them by using stuff like notes written in another person’s handwriting or by taking the form of someone else, or physically mess with stuff themselves, but they cannot be seen interfering or have their status as a Recap be discovered by anyone.

A Recap can interact with people when not protecting their assigned universe, but it must be extremely limited and they must appear as a native species. A human when on earth, an irken when on irk, etc.

Adult Recaps look nothing like Recap Kid. They look like this:

^ That is the Recap Brain. An adult Recap and one of the leaders of Recap society, in charge of watching over large chunks of the multiverse instead of just one universe per Recap.

The reason that Recap Kid looks like a human instead of a giant brain is because they’re still just a child. Recap children look a lot like humans. Plus they’re capable of changing their form to remove anything non-human.

Recaps can change their forms at will to blend in with native species of their assigned universes. It’s not perfect though, and even the best Recap disguises are …… uncanny at best to say the least. Even Recap Kid, despite already looking very human because of their age and not needing much to appear fully human, has a few things wrong with their human form. Their eyes have a slight glow, their entire body has a bit of a glitchy effect around the edges, just a bit uncanny. Luckily, Recaps have another trick up their sleeves to make them stand out less.

Recaps have an aura of sorts, that makes things ignore them. It doesn’t make them invisible, but it does make anyone that looks at them ignore them and just generally skip over them because they just don’t seem important. The aura even affects computers and has the bonus effect of making them not appear on camera 99.9 percent of the time. Recap children like Recap Kid can struggle to shut this aura off at times.

This aura really helps hide the more inhuman parts of Recap Kid’s form and makes it easier to sneak around and interact with things without being seen, but it does also make Recap Kid near impossible to notice if you’re even slightly focused on something else. In the comics Recap Kid got run over by Zim’s voot cruiser and Zim didn’t even realize it because Recap Kid’s aura made him unable to see Recap Kid. He was focused on driving and his brain, his PAK and the Voot’s computers all filtered out Recap Kid’s existence.

Recaps have a large amount of powers, even the young Recap Kid. Teleportation, the aura I just talked about, a whole slew of various psychic powers like telekinesis and telepathy, shapeshifting, even the ability to slow down, stop and even reverse time (to a limited extent and only if they’re in their assigned universe). And that’s just Recap Kid. An adult recap has even more powers and can even travel across dimensions at will.

Recaps also have access to a personal pocket dimension that they use as a house of sorts, along with using it to store various things. This pocket dimension is the empty void we see Recap Kid in at the beginning of every comic issue.

Despite all the powers they have and the fact that they live for literal trillions of years, Recaps aren’t gods. They’re close, but they’re still mortal. They can still be hurt and they can still be killed.

They also can’t magically fix absolutely everything. They can fix a lot, but they can only travel backwards though time by a certain amount and can only restore so much. They can’t fully repair their assigned universe if it is too damaged, so they must instead stop the universe from being damaged in the first place.

Recaps aren’t aware of the fourth wall or the fact that they’re all fictional characters in a fictional multiverse. That knowledge is unique to Recap Kid.

Recap Kid isn’t supposed to have a universe of their own to watch over yet. Universes are assigned to adults. Recap Kid, if you can’t tell from their name, is a kid. But the adult recaps assigned them a universe anyways.

Recap Kid is basically the Zim of the Recaps. The other Recaps wanted them out of the way so they took Recap Kid, shoved them into a random universe that was deemed “not worth watching” (ie: the universe that the comics take place in) and said “good news, you’re getting an assigned universe 5 billion years early. You already know the rules regarding assigned universes. Don’t come back.” Recap Kid has no idea that their mission is fake.

So Recap Kid wandered their new assigned universe for a while and eventually saw the events of “The Nightmare Begins”. More specifically, they saw Dib and Zim’s chase across town. After seeing that, they became obsessed with what Zim and Dib were doing on earth and began spending the majority of their time on earth. They even started attending School so they could see Zim and Dib’s elaborate fights up close.

The only thing separating the main universe (where the show and enter the florpus happens) and the comic universe (where the show happens, but enter the florpus doesn’t happen and the events of the comics happen instead) is one single moment. In the main universe, Zim forgets phase two of his plan, while in the comic universe, he doesn’t forget.

Recap Kid is a lot more willing to use their powers for less important things than stopping the complete annihilation of their assigned universe. They use their powers a lot to undo the damage that Zim and Dib cause while fighting. They still do their job though.

Recap Kid is the cause of the slightly unstable timeline of events in the comics. Returning everything to the status quo after every fight between Dib and Zim. Zim knocked the earth out of orbit and into the sun? Recap Kid is why earth is fine in the next issue. Zim blew up half the galaxy including the massive by accident? Recap Kid fixed it. Etc.

However, they only step in in very specific situations. If Zim kills Dib and takes over the Earth, Recap Kid will let it happen. Same goes for if Dib defeats Zim and exposes him. They only step in in situations where both Zim and Dib loose and they can’t get themselves back to normal on their own. Stuff like the Earth being knocked into the sun, killing both Zim and Dib, half the galaxy blowing up (which is something that Recaps would normally prevent), that kind of thing. So they only truly reset things in rare situations. Most of the time Zim and Dib can get things back to the status quo on their own.

There are two characters we know of that are slightly aware of the existence of Recap Kid.

The first is Dib. He’s noticed just a few things that made him a bit suspicious, like Recap Kid’s slightly uncanny appearance and awareness of everything, the fact that cameras don’t pick them up except for a few extremely blurry pictures with them in the background (Dib wasn’t even trying to take their picture, he just noticed Recap Kid in the background afterwards), the fact that no one in the school, not even the principal knows who they are and more than a couple encounters where Recap Kid ran into a room or turned a corner and just, disappeared without a trace. Dib has tried to figure out what Recap Kid is (his personal theory is that they’re some kind of ghost) but he quickly gave up after his notes disappeared without a trace, plus the mystery of Recap Kid just doesn’t seem “important” or “noteworthy” to Dib. So after a short while he started ignoring Recap Kid again without even noticing that he was doing it.

The second is Zim. He noticed Recap Kid show up on one of his security cameras really briefly and panicked, thinking that there was a human inside his base and only panicked more when his computer said that not only was no human detected in that room, but nothing was detected at all. Zim attempted to find Recap Kid and find out what they are, but all his attempts came up short and he eventually just brushed it off as a glitch in the security cameras, not important enough for him to waste time on it. This has happened several times.

#this post is old #ive advanced my Recap Kid Headcanons and theories since then and much of this has been overwritten #anyways the original tags are here ->#invader zim #headcanons #recap kid #comic spoilers #you ever just create an entire fictional race for the purposes of headcanons #anyways I gave recap kid lore #and made them into an eldritch abomination #it is like 2 am and I am tired enjoy my invader Zim comics brand brainrot condensed into a stupid tumblr post #I have no idea where any of these ideas came from

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amyisherenowitsokay · 2 years

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LEAVES.

Pipes my beloved hello

Originally I was going to use Dead Weight, but since it's still in progress, and I want to avoid having to spoiler my files, I'll use Re: MHNY as my example. 'Behind the scenes' previews incoming.

Long answer below the cut. You hath been warned.

Since my tweens I've gotten a LOT more organized about my writing and editing, both because I want a better output quality of story, and because my memory is way more shit than it used to be, and I don't want to lose any ideas simply because I can't remember my train of thought. So I tend to jump between just word-vomiting, a bulleted list of major events, and then go in and organize whatever I just wrote into a coherent timeline. I would say 90% of my editing actually starts with the prep work.

For example, and for starters, this is what the original bullet draft looked like for Re: MHNY. Since I knew I wanted to mimic the original MHNY, but still incorporate the necessary revisions, I wanted to keep in mind the completely necessary parallels while writing so I didn't miss anything.

From there, I start making revisions and throwing darts at the wall for ideas.

Here's an example of some of the revisions. Anything with a (?) next to it was an idea I wasn't firm on. Although realistically, the entirety of this section was just spit balling, and nothing was really firmly in place. You'll note that this isn't in chronological order at all, lmao. The order was essentially what I felt most immediately needed clarification.

You'll also notice some elements were unclear. A lot of it was asking myself questions that needed narrative, sensible solutions. Also, some details changed! Skoodge originally was hanging out with the Resisty during his capture. I had a loose idea of them being in a community cell, such as is shown in Enter the Florpus's Moo-Ping 10, but then felt like it'd create too many problems with why the Resisty wouldn't just kill some Irkens for vengeance. I also felt like Tak probably would've caused too many problems with any budding friendships between them, so obviously, in the final version, they're separated, and Skoodge's reasons for joining end up being far more personal than just because he's kind of dumb and friendly.

For Re, because I needed/wanted the chapters to run so closely in parallel with the original MHNY, I also had chapter summaries. I don't usually do this, but for this iteration, and in this context, I felt it was necessary.

Here's an example for Ch 3. Notice the highlighted portion emphasizes that I hadn't yet made the decision on who was doing what at this point. I wrote/started versions for both. In the end, it ended up being Zim of course who comes up with the lie, but this decision I remember actually was made with a LOT of debate for/against Gaz and/or Zim being the instigator.

Here's another example of some of more major revisions that happened from the original plot. I actually have a ton of deleted scenes from ch 9 + 10 that used this original plot. However, as I started writing, I didn't like it anymore. So in the middle of writing 9, and some major chunks of 10 started, I scrapped the whole thing and wrote and wrote and wrote until I got something I was satisfied with. I thought Dib being there for support was a lot more meaningful to his and Gaz's relationship than him just showing up to one-up Zim.

At some point I may release those deleted scenes the way I did with MHNY 3, as I did keep them all, but for now, they are safely stowed away in my google drive for me to scowl at and berate for not being good enough. A quick glance shows me I have about 5505 words in that file (aka about as much as a chapter's worth of deleted or unused content). Some of it was actually even shifted into Re:MHNY2, as I felt the dialogue was more appropriate for a more mature relationship. As a fun fact, there's deleted scenes for Ch 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 (pt 1), and 18.

The reason I kept all these is because I am deranged, and deleting them from existence hurt my feelings, but I also didn't want to publish them. So I hoard them like the little emotionally attached dragon I am.

Finally, sometime before, during, or after all this drafting happens, I actually just start writing. I write in whatever order I want. I have and will jump from the last chapter to the first, to the middle, to the semi-middle-beginning-ish with no concern whatsoever about chronology. A lot of times I will write an interaction between two characters that I feel fits better during a different timeline and just copy it over to that chapters document.

Each chapter gets it's own document. If I want to write something where I'm not sure of its position, it goes into a document labeled Random, Blank Document, or something else to emphasize that it's not a chapter and just random blurbs that need to be sorted at a later time. Those documents each get headings inside that I can jump to if/when they get sorted into the story, and are ready to be placed.

Since this is a competed story, all the scenes have been placed, so I'll use Dead Weight's current random blurb document (one of several) as an example (barely any spoilers)

If you're familiar with Google Docs, you'll know you can make headers within your document to jump to. It's super convenient for me, as a person who just likes to do the equivalent of throw pages on my floor and then painstakingly order them at a later time.

Just for fun, here's just how many documents I have dedicated solely to written scenes that are to be sorted at a later time for Paradorx:

You'll also see there's a calendar and a plot outline in that screenshot that was definitely on purpose and not the result of me just being too lazy to crop it out.

Once the actual draft is written, with words and paragraphs and everything, it gets revised.

Paragraphs get moved. Dialogue is taken out, revised, or thrown somewhere else that I feel fits it more appropriately. Grammar is changed. I reread every chapter about as much as I can stand to, take a break (ideally) and then read it again. I have deleted entire chapters, started entire chapters over, left a chapter halfway finished and decided it will pop up later in the story, etc. Dead Weight's next chapter for example has been restarted 4 or 5 times at this point, and I've only just now stumbled this week stumbled into what the next chapter is actually about.

Once it's been read, reread, reorganized, and picked apart until I hate it, it's deemed ready. Then I sit on it another week or so (depending on my deadline), read it again, and decide whether or not I want to add in any extra tidbits of foreshadowing for some later event that I've already written. At that point I'm just skimming for errors, grammatical fumbles, or anything that seems out of place. Finally, from there, publication!

An incredibly long answer that I hope really scopes out what I'm doing lmao.

As a spoiler/teaser for reading all of this, I can say that Re:MHNY2 is currently past the drafting phase, and is now in the "I throw words at the screen" phase. Not yet at the phase where I actually start ordering them into coherent chapters, but still developmentally in a good area.

#amyisherenowansweringyou #so much words #ravenfollower13 #ao3 #fanfiction #fanfic

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