WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

⌕ Prescription templat|

⏲ How to obtain medicine without doctor appointment

⏲ Human with no appetite and sensitive stomach

⏲ Human with high body tempeture

⏲ Human with constant vomiting

For an exploitative colonialist empire, the idea of a group of ppl they must protect for years and years is very annoying. While children don't have many rights rn (youth lib go), they are thought of as being exampt from work in many societies. This is (one of the reasons) why the idea of a child worker is so harrowing. To sidestep this moral issue, while ignoring all other material reasons why this is bad, the Irken empire simply erased the concept of children. If they can be propagandized to take over a planet to turn it into a parking lot, this isn't too hard either.

I feel like this gets way more at the core of the idea in the show. Anyone born in the empire is forced into the one single identity of "soldier". There are no alternatives for them.

Although smeets can already walk and talk after they're born, there's a stark contrast in behavior before and after their technologically induced puberty, at least through what we've seen of Zim:

They upload the entirety of Irken knowledge to a smeet's PAK minutes after it's born, effectively sidestepping any pesky "mental development" period that would hold back their growth, then literally hole them up underground and away from public eye until (assumedly) they're physically developed enough contribute to Irken conquest without immediately being turned into a green paste.

I'm sure the Irken Empire would love for a bunch of mechanically perfect super-soldiers that can jump into war from birth, but all signs point to Irkens requiring a maturation period just like any living being, and they're just... not getting it.

Irkens are essentially a bunch of maladjusted adults running around controlling every aspect of society without input from anyone who would know better, and that's why they're colonizing space for bullshit like parking lot planets or delicious snacks. Beyond the show's absurdity and militarized propaganda, the root of the issue is that they're genuinely too immature to be operating on the scale that they are. (Which also makes them easier to manipulate without question, tying back into the propagandized military state; go figure.)

Zim is definitely an adult by his own society's standards, but I think putting him in an environment where he can get important mental & social development he missed out on is doing him some good.

Being viewed as a child on Urth gives Zim leeway that should've been afforded to him a lot sooner. He's allowed to make mistakes, act out inappropriately, and learn at a natural pace instead of receiving information via direct upload to his consciousness. It's not perfect — he still lacks role models in his life outside of the Tallest (who are literally his age), and the lack of parental figures leads his relationship with GIR to feel like a parentified sibling-like dynamic, if any label is appropriate for them in the first place. He does, however, have peers in his social circle who treat him as an equal, and take him seriously enough to acknowledge him as an individual. That doesn't mean his classmates like him — far from it — but it is Invader Zim, after all. It just means that he's doing a good job of blending in with the age group, which he wouldn't have integrated into with the same level of success had he targeted college students instead.

Pretending Zim lives in a world where the vast majority of humans aren't mindless zombies, he'd have no idea how to converse with any of them ("So... how about those taxes, huh?"), and his idea of how adulthood works is no different from that of a child's.

(Despite having worked in food service before this, it's a bit memory-holed along with his mix of delusions leading to wild assumptions with no basis in reality. I know that's the joke, but y'know...)

If he had chosen an adult as his primary disguise, his mission would've doomed itself from the start. We only see his old man disguise on occasion, and all he's figured out is that public transit costs money and that he can beg perform on the streets for said money. Sudden outbursts and eccentric behaviors from children are seen as annoying yet expected, but from an adult? Good luck lasting a week without being institutionalized, imprisoned, or otherwise erased from society. (Technically, this is what happened to him on Irk when he was banished to Foodcourtia. I'm fairly certain he was tried as an adult for his crimes as a smeet as well, but that's moreso extrapolation from the text.)

Zim and Dib have a lot more in common than, say, Zim and Professor Membrane (maybe the only adult on the show with a modicum of characterization), despite the both of them being accomplished scientists on par with each others' intelligence. They're at completely different stages in life — Professor Membrane is trying to make noteworthy contributions to cement his legacy in the world, and Zim is still learning how to navigate it.

This isn't because Zim is inherently stupid; he's had no frame of reference for what an adult is supposed to be his entire life, and a human adult is on a wholly different level than an Irken adult. They might be on a similar level of physical maturity, but he's, y'know, an alien. Any 1:1 comparison is impossible, no matter how badly people want an easy answer.

So the answer to "Is Zim a child or an adult?", to me, is...

Yes. He sure is. Do whatever the hell you want forever.

For an exploitative colonialist empire, the idea of a group of ppl they must protect for years and years is very annoying. While children don't have many rights rn (youth lib go), they are thought of as being exampt from work in many societies. This is (one of the reasons) why the idea of a child worker is so harrowing. To sidestep this moral issue, while ignoring all other material reasons why this is bad, the Irken empire simply erased the concept of children. If they can be propagandized to take over a planet to turn it into a parking lot, this isn't too hard either.

I feel like this gets way more at the core of the idea in the show. Anyone born in the empire is forced into the one single identity of "soldier". There are no alternatives for them.

Although smeets can already walk and talk after they're born, there's a stark contrast in behavior before and after their technologically induced puberty, at least through what we've seen of Zim:

They upload the entirety of Irken knowledge to a smeet's PAK minutes after it's born, effectively sidestepping any pesky "mental development" period that would hold back their growth, then literally hole them up underground and away from public eye until (assumedly) they're physically developed enough contribute to Irken conquest without immediately being turned into a green paste.

I'm sure the Irken Empire would love for a bunch of mechanically perfect super-soldiers that can jump into war from birth, but all signs point to Irkens requiring a maturation period just like any living being, and they're just... not getting it.

Irkens are essentially a bunch of maladjusted adults running around controlling every aspect of society without input from anyone who would know better, and that's why they're colonizing space for bullshit like parking lot planets or delicious snacks. Beyond the show's absurdity and militarized propaganda, the root of the issue is that they're genuinely too immature to be operating on the scale that they are. (Which also makes them easier to manipulate without question, tying back into the propagandized military state; go figure.)

project hail mary x invader zim au. more doodles below

"Your sickness shouldn't be a reason to dehumanize yourself, so I'll show you that you are as normal like me. Then, you'll grow up as a member of society, together."

I actually already drew a fem 2im months ago and I'm still very proud of how she looks (although being with her provoking Zib pfft), while Zib's fem desing it's a redraw since my first attempt was very disastrous, I like this one better

I always struggle when drawing fem Dib because I never get around her hairstyle, I want one that still screams "Dib" to me and I'm very undecided about picking one I like. The first doodle is @virgilakio's desing of fem PN!Dib!! (Look at it here) Their interpretation really helped me out with it (and she looks adorable)

Really proud of my fem Zim, always loved seeing her with messy hair

yeah here are some random ones