#tak from invader zim | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

random-iz-stuff · 2 years

Note

I absolutely love the bit of your newest post about Zim just casually *walking* back towards Tak in the rain. I can just imagine the scene and it's fucking amazing. I love Zim just being causally terrifying to others (intentional or not) in ways that aren't just him being a bit crazy or destructive.

I also love all your stuff that actually uses Zim's background, and all that comes with that.

I wonder what it would be like for Tak if she managed to genuinely piss him off (another thing that I love your headcanons of)

Tak absolutely refuses to admit it, but she’s the underdog in this situation. She’s an ex-soldier with plenty of engineering experience from her time on Dirt, and has access to a holographic disguise that’s more advanced than any other disguise in the empire, but her opponent is a fully trained ex-invader with an extensive scientific background that knows earth better than any other irken.

Plus, she fell HARD for Zim’s dumb act.

Tak came from Dirt, knowing nothing about Zim other than the fact that he’s a complete idiot and that he ruined her life. Then, upon arriving on Earth and revealing herself to Zim, that information is seemingly proven to be true, with Zim acting like a complete idiot, interrupting her multiple times and even after explaining everything to him, he STILL doesn’t understand, immediately believing that Tak is after his robot bee. She meets Zim face to face and he’s a complete idiot that doesn’t deserve the time of day from her.

But what if I told you that that was exactly what Zim WANTED her to think. Zim puts on a dumb persona specifically so people underestimate him and/or are manipulated easier by him. So upon another Irken showing up on his doorstep, clearly wanting him dead, he plays dumb. He successfully gets Tak to believe that he’s a complete moron that’s not worth killing, since there’s no way this idiot could ever come close to stopping her plan…. ..right?

The base-disabling nanobots were a surprise, but Zim still managed to minimize the damage, since he got Tak to deploy them on the upper floor where none of his important equipment is. His base was still temporarily disabled, but imagine the damage that would have been caused if Tak released them in his proper base, where all of his actual equipment and computers are.

Plus, Zim is a complete enigma, not just to Tak, but to the entire irken race.

I already mentioned how Zim figured out how to waterproof himself using paste, while no sane irken would even consider using that stuff as waterproofing. And it’s a well kept secret of Zim’s, with not even Dib knowing how he does it, or why Zim’s waterproofing is so inconsistent (he frequently forgets to apply the stuff, so he only really consistently has waterproofing on days when it’s expected to rain).

But that’s not all. Zim has one thing that puts him above the average irken. He’s extremely adaptable. He can change his plans on the fly, he will go against what he’s been taught in the military if it benefits him and most importantly of all, he doesn’t care about efficiency.

For all irkens, efficiency is the most important thing. You must be effective and efficient to succeed. But Zim doesn’t care about that. As long as it works, he’ll use it. For example, waterproofing. Most irkens would never use paste because, well, it’s a primitive arts and crafts material that doesn’t last forever on the invader’s skin, losing effectiveness over time. They’d instead spend days searching for or creating their own solution that is effective as possible, perfect waterproofing or bust. Zim on the other hand, doesn’t care. Paste does it’s job just fine, so he uses it. No sense trying to fix something that’s not broken.

Even his Voot Cruiser is an example of this. Zim’s Voot is obviously an old model. It uses a propulsion system instead of whatever thrustless system modern ships use and doesn’t have an onboard computer like modern ships, and yet he refuses to get rid of it. It’s a perfectly good ship that’s served him well in the past, so he’s not getting rid of it for the sake of efficiency.

And speaking of Zim’s Voot, his dogfight with Tak is a perfect demonstration of Zim’s military skill against Tak, because the thing is, even with an outdated ship, in his dogfight with Tak, he pilots it with masterful skill, managing to outmaneuver Tak throughout the entire fight. Keep in mind that Zim managed to remain directly behind Tak for the entire dogfight (which is a very important and central part of dogfighting), with her and her modified modern ship unable to shake him. During the entire dogfight, ZIM is the only one that fires any weapons. Tak can’t even get into a position that would let her shoot back. Even when flying through the lava around them, she is unable to get Zim off her tail. Zim was winning that dogfight even before Gaz and Gir started helping.

Tak has to resort to physically ramming him to do any damage. And even that does minimal damage as Zim simply ejects the cockpit window and replaces it, which in of itself could be an example of Zim being adaptable and going against his traditional military training.

And the final nail in the coffin during the whole dogfight, Zim is completely silent during the entire thing. He isn’t putting up a persona or trying to make himself seem dumber or smarter than he really is. Zim is completely focused on the task at hand, which is a terrifying thing for Tak to be up against. The only time he speaks is after he wins, when he claims that Tak’s piloting is worse than his, indicating that despite Zim being able to pretty much run circles around Tak in his ship, he doesn’t even view himself as that good of a pilot.

But then there’s this scene that single handily adds a whole new layer to Zim’s character:

Tak’s ship is destroyed and is spinning out in front of Zim. Zim proceeds to joke about Tak’s piloting skills, but then has a realization of some kind and then proceeds to ram Tak’s ship. It seems a bit strange, but it actually shows us something very important about Zim.

First of all, his realization. What was he referring to when he said “Wait”? Well, Tak’s ship is spinning out in front of him and although she does have an escape pod, I’ve played enough Kerbal Space Program to know that deploying something while the main ship is uncontrollably spinning like that will result in the pod getting destroyed or at least heavily damaged. And since her ship is damaged and disabled, Tak can’t just stop the spin with a few button presses. She has no control.

And judging by Zim’s face when he says “Wait”, he knows that.

That’s the look of a concerned Zim. Despite just fighting with her, Zim almost seems worried about Tak’s safety as her ship is stuck spinning with no safe way of ejecting. Even his tone of voice indicates this, as the insulting tone he was just using while making fun of Tak’s piloting skills INSTANTLY disappears upon his realization.

And then, when Zim rams Tak, think about what he just did. He knocked Tak into a bubble of lava. Irken ships have been shown to be extremely heatproof, given how the massive was able to fly through a star and how Zim and Tak’s own ships have been fine zipping around the lava in the dogfight a few seconds ago, and lava is a liquid, not a solid object, so Tak’s ship isn’t going to be very damaged by crashing into it. The most crashing into the lava will do is slow her ship down since that’s what happens when you submerge a moving object in a liquid.

So by knocking Tak’s ship into that lava bubble, Zim slowed the spinning of Tak’s ship, making it safe for her to eject. The fact that Tak only ejects after Zim rams her and not while she’s spinning out adds more evidence to this.

Zim had no reason to do this. He could have very easily left Tak spinning and unable to eject from her damaged ship or even just shot Tak while she was defenceless, but he didn’t. So Zim actively chose to spare Tak by giving her a safe chance to eject from her ship.

So despite Tak wanting him dead and Zim being fully aware of this, he chooses to spare her, fully knowing that she won’t do the same. This pretty much goes against the entire mindset of irkens, especially invaders, who, valuing efficiency over everything else, will remove any threat that they get even the slightest chance to remove.

This part of Zim’s character where he spares those that definitely won’t spare him can be seen with one other character, Dib, who Zim is fully capable of killing with minimal effort, but chooses to keep alive, only attempting to kill him in certain elaborate schemes, and even seeming to go easy on him, not using weapons or his PAK in most fights.

There are two different reasons that Zim may do this. The first is that he may purposely spare people that he considers “worthy adversaries”, despite the fact that they definitely will not do the same to him. If this is true, then Dib and Tak both seem to be considered worthy adversaries by Zim, but since Tak is an irken and much more of a threat than Dib, he doesn’t go easy on her like he does with Dib, but still chooses to spare her after the fight is over.

The second reason is that Zim may fight dirty, but he has his limits. Killing Tak in a dogfight? Sure. But letting Tak die in a broken ship she can’t control or shooting her while she’s in no condition to fight? Hell no. Same goes for Dib. Elaborate scheme where you turn him into a sausage or throw him into a dimension containing a room with a moose? Sure. Just straight up shooting him because he’s a human child and you’re an alien soldier with technology more advanced than he will ever know? Hell no.

It’s probably a mix of the two options, but the final point is that Zim has a weird relationship with killing, and will spare people that won’t do the same.

That being said, Tak hasn’t seen Zim get angry enough to go quiet, although she did witness Zim being focused enough to go quiet during the entire dogfight, which is very close to the same thing. She’s never seen Zim properly drop the dumb persona either, as she herself fell for it and still believes that Zim is an idiot now.

However, if she ever did see Zim’s quiet and competent persona that he gains when he’s extremely angry, she’d never want to see it again. Especially since Zim is very likely to forgo his usual rules with sparing in this situation, and he already doesn’t go easy on her like he does with Dib.

[This post is a continuation of these two posts: https://random-iz-stuff.tumblr.com/post/691450114671296512/write-some-ideas-for-a-fake-invader-zim-episode, https://random-iz-stuff.tumblr.com/post/680570994898894848/headcanon]

#invader zim #headcanons #analysis #zim #tak #Tak’s episode is one of the best episodes in the entire show #especially when you look closely and see the smaller details #like Zim choosing to spare Tak for unknown reasons #and Zim’s competence in general #just imagine the dogfight from Tak’s perspective #you’re going up against a person that as far as you know is a complete idiot that can barely do anything properly #and then he manages to maneuver himself behind you (which is how you win most dogfights)#and you just cannot shake him off #you can’t even get close to landing a hit on him as he trails behind you with masterful precision #you need to resort to physically ramming him to do damage #which does next to nothing as he literally removes his cockpit window and replaces it mid-fight #and then your Sir unit starts going crazy #and oh god it has the same eye colour as Zim’s insane defective unit #what has he done?

179 notes · View notes