I think almost all of you know about the movie “the thing”. One of my favorite fucking movies and I had a dream about Dib getting “infected” with the thing’s bacteria, and instead of getting killed over it he got hospitalised into some kind of intergalactic hospital where the alien doctors were like “ok so, you’re fucked for life now, here are your meds, take them daily to prevent this thing from corrupting your body entirely and replacing your personality”
Dib most likely got infected because he went on a cosmic trip to try and study animal life on other planet, but one of the creatures he stumbled upon was fully corrupted by “the thing”. It looked small and innocent enough for Dib to get close, then it transformed and almost killed him, infecting him with the corrupting bacteria as well. The creature lost interest when Dib passed out from heavy injuries. Then I think some kind of intergalactic patrol flew over to this planet. They were sent to eliminate all of the infected creatures in order to not let “the thing” destroy the entire ecosystem. They found a passed out stinky human on the ground, something that they have never seen before, so they got interested. By the freshness of wounds they decided Dib could still have a chance to not be fully replaced by the thing, so they picked him up and immediately put him into freezing camera in order to stop the process of molecular replacement in his body. And they gave him over to the hospital that specialises in studying “the thing” and trying to cure it. The next time Dib woke up all his wounds were already fully healed on their own, thanks to the thing’s bacteria giving him insane regenerative abilities. The doctors tested every single ounce of his body and determined that everything in him is already replaced except his brain, which was still 50% of his own. So basically he’s mentally 50% human 50% thing, and the leading parts of personality can replace each other, both the human and monster part trying to take full control of the body and mind. The doctors explained everything to Dib about his condition and what to do with it, and decided to let him get necessary med supply for free if Dib lets them to study his condition once in a while, and Dib accepted the offer. So about the med Dib has to take… He takes both shots and pills. He’s supposed to inject one shot into himself once every few months, and he has to take the same med but in pill form every time any part of his body transforms on its own or when he starts to feel like he loses control over his mind and actions, or when his eternal organs’ placement starts feeling weird and whatnot. The med suppresses the thing’s molecules by not letting them corrupt new areas & infect new creatures. However Dib’s body can still transform without his control, so sometimes he needs higher doses (aka pills) to suppress that as well. There’s also a lot of mental side effects due to his brain being 50% not his. He gets a lot of very odd thoughts that feel like they’re not his own. Sometimes he gets oddly tempted to do things he would never do before he got infected. Like eating raw meat, including human meat. Although he tries his best not to let himself kill anyone usually, all his new thoughts and desires and cravings are extremely overpowering which results in “the thing” taking full control over his mind and body sometimes, leading to a lot of murdering everything that moves, full body transformations and overall just complete chaos. When this shit happens, Zim must catch Dib’s ass and inject his meds into him. Such episodes will eventually end on their own when the human part of mind regains control but the emergency dose is needed to speed it up to avoid consequences like killed people. Btw the meds aren’t really suppressing thing’s thoughts so they’re basically always mixed with Dib’s actual thoughts, so it’s up to his powers to determine which thought is his and which is not. Besides murderous tendencies Dib also has a lot of animalistic desires (examples: “the air feels kinda suffocating, I need to be under the water”, “I need to eat krill”, “I must dig 50 burrows in my backyard right now”, “if anyone runs away from me on the street I must chase them”, “I must run after that car and jump on top of it and shred it into pieces and devour everyone in it”. All of it running through his mind at the same moment btw.). All because before him the thing already corrupted a lot of more primitive creatures. In this AU Zim will be like Dib’s caretaker. I’ll explain more abt it later.
