New (Cursed AF) Invader Zim Headcanon:
Barring the potential for major acute blood loss, Irkens can actually survive a full decapitation.
And I brought substance to make the case with.
Cockroaches, one of the most infamously durable of real life animals, can live for several days, sometimes even weeks without their head. And for the most part, they still even act like normal roaches- crawling about, reacting to touch, standing around, etc. it seems the only reason this eventually catches up to the critter is because no mouth = no way to keep bringing necessary food and water into the body. If that were bypassed, however, it stands to reason the little zombie could thrive just as much as a headed roach.
Almost disturbingly, the head itself can actually last a surprising amount of time solo as well. Experiments with decapitated roaches show that after body separation, roach heads can still move their antennae for hours before succumbing- much longer even if kept refrigerated and supplied with nutrients.
One of the neat things about roach bodies that makes such a feat possible is how their nervous system is set up- simplified ref against what yours looks like below
Now, anyone who has ever said a roach can survive for a while without its brain is not being entirely accurate. Functionally, they actually have two sort-of brains: the main point of nerve centralization is contained in the head, which for the most part is a primary brain responsible for movement coordination, certain technical functions, interpreting stimuli that comes in from the antennae, and more. The second main point of interest in this system is a series of nerve clusters running down the insect’s abdomen known as ganglia (singular: ganglion). These bundles of neurons are not exactly brains in their own right, but they do function as an extended CNS that handles the control over the digestive tract, reacting to stimuli, leg movement, and other more basic bodily functions. These can operate the body on a primitive level after the loss of the main brain, up until thirst/starvation begins to run the wind out of the sails.
You know what sort of creature actually DOES have two entire complete brains? One up top, and an auxiliary backup a little further down?
If you were nodding along and saying “irkens!” Then you would be correct! One peanut and five more days in the bunker for you 🥜 ~
As is obvious to anyone familiar with the show, the PAK is an essential cybernetic addition to Irken biology, holding their gear as well as an entire digital backup of their personality and memories. While it serves many functions to the user, the first and foremost priority of one is to protect the existence of the meaty entity it needs in to carry itself around.
To that end we’ve seen some autonomous acts from time to time with Zim’s close calls. If you recall “Plague of Babies”, he… kind of died for a moment there, caught up in a wave of GIR’s lethally amplified stupidity. In response, his PAK appears to resuscitate him with a quick jolt. The would-be events of “10 Minutes to Doom” emphasize the necessity of the PAK for any Irken’s survival beyond several minutes, which directly implies PAKs facilitate a major biological process their natural bodies are no longer capable of alone. Personally, I think it might be something either neurological or related to respiration, on a hunch.
Well, whatever it is, they are toast without it in swift manner, and the PAK doesn’t prefer to be without its other piece anymore than the body does. Dib’s revelation about the technology described their relationship with its body like that of driver and car, but I think he’s missing something. The PAK is actually more than capable of carrying itself around without the body… at least for a time.
When I think about those things, a little dilemma pops up in my head concerning how they.. well, how they’re powered. It is never explained or demonstrated that they are given time off of the body in order to charge; however, irkens are probably advanced enough to have some smaller and sci-fi wildly potent and small energy source up their sleeves, but actually, that wouldn’t quite make sense here. Because Irken bodies still produce their energy the same way every other lifeform in the known galaxy does, with food. Lots of food, actually. They can mow through snacks at about the same rate as Augustus Gloop. PAKs don’t need to produce their own independent energy source, they just need to efficiently make use of what this organism is already evolutionarily fine tuned to do naturally. Now that’s smart engineering.
And so, like any respectable auxiliary life support feature, they hold some of that energy in a reserve for those crisis moments like in “Plague of Babies”, and also in a deleted scene made for “Abduction”!
Fun trivia fact, but originally that episode was supposed to feature a sequence where Zim nearly game overs again. He takes a gnarly hit and a literal plunge through open flames that knocks him out in a free fall.
Despite his incapacitated state, the PAK extends its spider legs in order to catch a walkway railing, both saving his life and proceeding to keep carrying his limp body to a safer location, until of of course, he comes to about a moment later and carries on.
And neither of these are the only times it’s sprung into action the moment it detects something has gone horribly wrong. When accidentally detached from its own host, an emergency response will be triggered within the PAK in an attempt to reattach with its body. Failing that, it attaches instead to… well, whatever it can find.
In “10 minutes to Doom”, this was unfortunately Dib, an incompatible match (or maybe it just picked an improper attachment site), and in the comics… things got interesting at a point or two.
So, I already know what happens when you separate an Irken from their spinal brain, but what about the cranial one?
Because, they actually don’t seem on the same level of urgent necessity? Now that I think about it?
The time machine kerfuffle and the brain eating parasite escape were both events this guy evidently survived, albeit not comfortably or ideally until the problem was fixed (I have to assume in part with GIR’s or the Computer’s help). Now that I think about it Zim’s incredibly fortunate that most of these more serious mishaps happened inside of his base. But it’s theory time.
So, we do this, to a hypothetical green bug bastard
For fun let’s say, hypothetically again, like the hardy earth roach, he blood clots quickly.
Well, first and foremost, that higher up nervous system blackout is probably going to cue the PAK in to begin the following protocol:
1. Activate an emergency response to quickly access the situation.
2. Immediately scurry the body the hell away from whatever manner of threat just shaved a little too much off the top, engaging in all possible defensive measures if necessary.
3. Devote the entirety of its remaining backup power (of which it would have much more stored within the headless body than if it were itself detached) into making a beeline for the coordinates of the nearest Irken source of assistance. On the homeworld, or any fully colonized planet, this would be a cut and dry matter of finding the nearest theoretical space clinic or whatever those freaks have (maybe those dbz regeneration tanks? Idk that would be cool wouldn’t it?). For the lone invader… home base is the next best alternative, being a secured location with plenty of resources and advanced technology at the ready. I would bet my own head that situations like this are a huge highlight to the prime value of a personal SIR companion.
Now, best case scenario for what this help looks like depends on whether we can save and bring the head along too. Reattachment and repair at that point should be a pretty simple matter at the tech level we are working with, afterall. But that’s again, the ideal case scenario. Could they just… regrow the head eventually? We don’t really have a clear answer on what the limits and capabilities of what the Irken healing factor is, but I want to at least guess that having a personal lab and assistant on hand is going to help. Bare minimum, a solution can get worked out to supply the body with needed blood sugars again to buy more time.
The PAK itself retains a pretty much perfect digital backup of its body’s memories, experiences, and identity, so it’s not like information has been permanently been lost with primary brain damage. Replacing the primary brain entirely might be as easy as backing up your iPhone and downloading everything into some shiny new hardware. Hell, it may not even need be Irken hardware!
Do you know the real disturbing things from “Dark Harvest” NOBODY brings up are???
Why the fuck was an instantaneous organ-swapping device already just something Zim was carrying around in his toolset?
And
Zim’s morphology was horrifically receptive to those dozens of xenographs.
Those human organs were actually beating, pulsing, absolutely redundant and unnecessary in his body, but completely still functional and healthy in the name of selling his act to the school nurse. He didn’t just clumsily cram a bunch of offal into himself, he competently integrated them into his biology and somehow wasn’t suffering like… the tons of complications you’d expect from trying a stunt like that.
And in the comics, there’s this other fella I just adore for how skrangly he looks, and believe it or not, his actual fucking name is Skrang.
He’s a smart guy, though. Don’t be fooled. And I mean like, a smart guy. And it’s all thanks to a little help from a little upgrade he’s been fitted with :)
So, I hope you take all the implications I’ve been building here and make what you will of them. I genuinely think an Irken has a decent chance of making it out of a beheading alive to seek sadistic vengeance another day. Do I think ZIM could do such a thing? Tbh, I think he’d have to rely on GIR to come in clutch, and we may know that’s a complete roll of the dice in any case.
Wow, this got morbid, but, par for the course really.
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BLLK boys + their reaction to you asking if they would love you if you were a worm
Rin: What. Why would you be a worm. That’s a stupid and improbable scenario. Do not ask him such an idiotic question ever again. (It’s yes btw).
Sae: leaves you on read. He is a busy guy and he does not have time to entertain such trivial questions.
Chigiri: haha yeah of course! :) He loves you no matter what! But he is lying through his ass because worms are slimy and gross and if you turned into one he would try to pick you up for five minutes and then when he works up the courage to actually do so he would scream and drop you because you started wiggling and then you would fall to your death.
Isagi: (takes two hours to think about the logic and reality of raising a worm lover before replying) yes :) ofc! (Has nightmares about taking care of a worm. Can you still communicate with him? Are you a human in a worm body? Do you have a worm lifespan or a human one? What if you forget him and leave him for another worm?)
Bachira: Worms are cool!!!! He would be a worm with you :3 !!!! But if you turned into a worm and he didn’t then he would misplace you after about thirty minutes and then accidentally squish you because he wasn’t looking. Rip worm you.
Reo: Yes. Absolutely. He would buy a nice enclosure for you with lots of dirt and premium worm food and imported vegetation and he would put you next to his bed and greet you every morning and hire top expert worm researchers so he can take care of you (he thought about buying a garden for you to live in but gets paranoid that you’ll run away and he won’t be able to find you).
Nagi: Actually has the audacity to tell you that he would prefer you as a worm because worms are easier to take care of than humans.
Ness: He would literally worship worm you. He would spend all of his paycheck on buying you nice worm things and carry you around in a little jar in his bag and start screaming if anyone tried to touch you. He says unironic shit like “i would die for you so you could use my corpse as worm nutrients :)”
Kaiser: Super pissed at the idea of you being a worm. What the fuck. How is he going to kiss you now? He is NOT bringing his lips anywhere near a slimy, wriggling creature. This is inconvenient and very weird. He would demand for you to turn back into a human or he will break up with you (you have to remind him this is a hypothetical situation).
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rui facts that are common knowledge atp but i just feel like repeating
hates vegetables because of their texture, and dislikes anything that has similar texture to certain vegetables. example: he hates watermelon because apparently to him the texture is just like a cucumber's? he's not very fond of many fruits either, albeit he dislikes them less than vegetables
only eats at places he's a regular at and becomes distressed when the menu changes. he picks off all vegetables from his food and sometimes emu helps him and eats anything he doesn't like
preferred rivers and lakes over pools as a kid. he would search for shiny rocks and the like in these rivers and lakes and show nene his discoveries
he owned many encyclopedias as a kid. one of them being one about poisonous plants. it had a bright red cover that scared nene LMAO but he read it over and over so now he can recognize which plants are poisonous or not
favourite animal is the platypus because he finds the fact that they are egg-laying mammals interesting
owns three monitors. has a tablet (owned this tablet since he was a kid) and a phone
horrible at packing! he's always thinking about worst case scenarios and possible hypotheticals that could occur during his travels, causing him to overpack and not use half of the things he brings. he mentions that this was the case when he went to america with wxs, and he struggled with the same problem when he was trying to pack for his kyoto trip in pandemonium
his favourite show he performed with wxs was the little mermaid. the show that made him feel the most nervous was a pianist named torpe, and the show that left the strongest impression on him was the one tsukasa performed with the others to convince him to join wxs again
dislikes cleaning because he finds it pointless when his room just becomes cluttered again sooner or later
worst sleep schedule known to man. has been scolded by wxs for coming to rehearsal with horrible eye bags
he people watches a lot. very observant of his environment and uses anything that catches his attention as inspiration for shows and other stories. this can be seen in island panic, where he makes up an entire possible conversation between three monkeys he was observing and in the area convo where he views students fighting to buy bread at the tuck shop as a metaphor for human nature and survival
his role model and inspiration is a director named tom gray! he watched interviews of him and read his books over and over
enjoyer of sci-fi
eats his taiyaki by first splitting it in half to avoid burning his mouth with the hot bean paste. interestingly enough, it is said in japan that the first bite you take in taiyaki determines your personality. rui breaks his taiyaki first before eating, making him a "person of action."
he deepened his interest for shows as a kid by imagining how he would adapt his favourite books into stage productions
there's a specific stool in his room that has remained since his childhood. also an orange box of toys(?) It seems
on the other hand, several aspects of his childhood room have changed: his lampshades are in the shapes of flowers now, his couch is patched up in blue, and he has multiple streamers and balloons. the balloons have little faces on them btw. he also installed a clock. the step ladder near his bookshelf is gone too from what i can see
ok that's all i can think of from the top of my head, hopefully none of these are incorrect,, i'll be very sad if something is wrong. if you know any fun rui facts that aren't listed above PLEASE enlighten me
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