#pmazr

aliens arent real....

After living for many years on earth squandering his budget while failing to take it over, the Tallest tell Zim they're cutting him off and he's going to have to fend for himself if he wants to complete his mission. So Zim needs human money to keep the lights on and busking on the street isn't paying the bills. A soap opera gives him the idea to marry someone rich and kill them off for the inheritance. Realizing that Professor Membrane is the richest man in town, Zim sets out to seduce him, gleeful about how much it will piss Dib off to see his father with him and then how crushed he'll be when Zim murders him, takes all his money, and leaves Dib and Gaz broke. He thinks it will be easy because Dib and Gaz are in college and living in dormitories. They're seeing their father even less than they did when they were kids, allowing Zim to work Membrane without either of them knowing until it's too late.

He applies for a position as a lab tech at Membrane Labs and initially tries to introduce himself as a stranger, but abandons the persona when Membrane instantly recognizes him as "my son's little foreign friend". Zim connives to keep Dib from finding out about his scheme and drive a wedge between him and Membrane in order to get him cut out of the will. He does so by claiming that he doesn't want Dib to know his "best friend" is working for his father because it would make him feel betrayed because he hates Membrane and has said all sorts of nasty things about him behind his back. Membrane is hurt to hear what his son thinks of him, but Zim makes him swear not to let on that he knows anything of Dib's resentment. Then he consoles Membrane by saying he doesn't believe any of the nasty things Dib has said and blames his resentment on his own insecurities about not being able to live up to such a great man.

Zim spends some time working Membrane, building up a relationship with him and gaining his confidence, mostly through pretending to be close to Dib and relaying things to him that Dib won't talk about. But when he tries to make a move, Membrane backs away, saying it would be extremely unethical for him to have a relationship with a young employee and that it was inappropriate to let their relationship become as emotionally intimate as it already has. Zim tries to salvage the situation by suggesting he quit working at Membrane Labs to remove the ethical concerns, but Membrane pleads with him not to throw away a promising career, insisting that it would make no difference as Membrane only sees him as a friend. Zim suspects that Membrane does have feelings for him, or is at least emotionally invested enough in the friendship that he can't bring himself to set boundaries he knows he should, and if he backs off just a little he can continue to work Membrane until he's ready to compromise his morals and cross the line with him.

But just when Membrane starts to fall for him, Dib unexpectedly shows up at the house and catches him and Zim having a romantic moment. Zim thinks his plan is ruined, until he realizes he can twist the situation to his advantage by emphasizing how close he and Membrane have gotten without him knowing, so his ire will be directed at his father for paying more attention to his sworn enemy than he's paid Dib his whole life. This puts Membrane on the defensive so he hits Dib back with all the stuff Zim fed him about how Dib is just resentful he isn't as successful as his father and how it's his own fault he's a failure because he chooses to pursue paranormal nonsense instead of real science just to spite him. This gets Dib so angry he doesn't even care to try to convince Membrane that Zim is trying to seduce him for one of his evil plans. Even if he did, Zim wouldn't have to worry about it anyway because now Membrane will just think he's making it up because he doesn't want him to be happy with the only person he's ever been able to lean on for emotional support.

After their explosive fight, Dib goes off to sulk for a bit, calms down, clears his head, and remembers that no matter what's going on between him and his dad he should prioritize stopping Zim above anything else. Plus, if he can expose Zim this time Membrane's really going to have to eat his words. So he decides to feign having "seen the light". Instead of trying to convince Membrane that Zim is an alien, Dib pretends to be supportive of their relationship and want to spend more time with both of them, as a pretense for butting in on their dates to keep an eye on Zim and look for opportunities to publicly expose him.

The scheme starts to become quite tiresome for Zim. He tires of pretending to like Membrane, tires of having to be on guard for Dib's attempts at unmasking him, and tires of always having to think 2 steps ahead to keep the charade going. It becomes so emotionally draining that during one of his and Dib's "I'll stop you!/You'll never defeat me!" exchanges at Zim's front door, he has an outburst and starts ranting about how much he's not been getting any twisted enjoyment out of his plan to seduce Dib's dad.

"I listen to him whine about his problems for hours, but does he ever ask about how I'm doing? He talks to me like I'm an idiot who doesn't know an isotope from an isobar! And worst of all, he's boring. I've never met someone with so much scientific prowess and so little imagination!"

This gets a laugh out of Dib and he and Zim start talking shit about Membrane being full of himself, emotionally unavailable, and too narrow-minded to achieve his full potential as a scientist. Not like Dib. His father can't see it, but Dib's more of a real scientist than Membrane will ever be, because he has the open-mindedness to see things Membrane can't and discover and create things he never will. That's what makes him Zim's only truly worthy adversary.

Something happens between Zim and Dib then. Maybe they make-out or maybe they have a full-on shag. Dib leaves pretty quickly after and goes running to Gaz because he's freaking out and has to tell SOMEBODY. Dib is worried about what this all means for him and Zim. But Gaz points out that he's stupidly missed a golden opportunity to break up Zim and their dad by getting to Membrane first and confessing what happened. Zim's probably with him right now, doing some preemptive damage control to get Membrane on his side so he won't listen to Dib. Gaz turns out to be right on the money. Membrane feels betrayed by Dib and more convinced than ever that the only reason he objects to his relationship with Zim is because he's jealous, prompting him to cut Dib off financially and cut him out of his life for being "spoiled, vindictive, and ungrateful".

Soon after, Zim convinces Membrane to propose and then suggests getting married straight away at the courthouse. They don't tell Dib, but he catches wind of it anyway and heads over to stop them. Anticipating this, Zim traps Dib and gloats to him that he's finally won while admitting that their little tryst was special to him and he really did mean all those things he said to him before about Dib being the only human he could ever respect as an equal.

He leaves Dib with a video feed so he can watch helplessly as his father is about to marry his arch nemesis, only for Gaz to end up thwarting the ceremony by playing a recording of Zim's earlier gloating, revealing the whole scheme to marry Membrane for his money. Zim he was so focused on Dib that he forgot Gaz even existed and never made any efforts at preventing her from interfering.

Zim bolts from the courthouse, having wasted several months courting Dib's dad, only for the scheme to blow up in his face at the last minute. He returns to his base, which is now in a pretty bad state with no income from the Tallest anymore and no human money to purchase the components he needs locally to fix the place up. Zim is feeling pretty down. Out of desperation, he calls the Tallest to plead with them to give him back his salary. It's impossible for him to do his job now. He needs funds for his evil schemes and now he can't even fuel his Voot Cruiser, so he's basically stranded. The Tallest are delighted to hear this because it means there's no way for Zim to ever make it back to them, so they can finally tell him his mission was fake, they hate him, and they're not wasting another penny on him just to keep the charade going.

Zim is devastated to learn he's been such a fool. An even bigger fool than Membrane. Thinking about how much he'd laughed behind Membrane's back makes him think about how much the Tallest may have done it to him. He feels sick. GIR sees that he's upset and tries to cheer him up, and it finally clicks for Zim that GIR was never a special advanced top secret model. That was another one of the Tallests' lies. He can't stand to look at him. Can't stand to look at the walls of his deteriorating base. He needs to get out.

He runs out to get some air and find some quiet place to be alone with his thoughts. But Dib finds him, and he's not happy. Even though he won, he's still pissed off. He doesn't even care that Membrane wants to apologize now for doubting him. It's only made him realize that he never should've had to fight so hard to earn his dad's respect and get him to listen and believe him. His relationship with his father is worse now than ever before, and it's all Zim's fault. Zim tells Dib that at least he can take solace in knowing that he's won because Zim can't continue his mission any longer, it was a sham from the start, and at least the person he was trying so hard to prove himself to actually does care about him and think very highly of him, unlike the Tallest. He offers to surrender himself to Dib, but Dib isn't having that after the Florpus incident. What would be the point anyway? He's so beyond not caring anymore about proving himself right to his dad or anybody else. Zim suggests that Dib strike him down instead and put him out of his misery. Again, Dib turns him down. Zim doesn't know what to do if both of those options are off the table, and Dib asks if they can just lie in the grass and talk for awhile.

They spend all night together talking about how no one appreciates them except each other, how special and unique they are to each other, how unimaginably empty their lives would've been if they didn't have each other all these years, and how they both don't know how to move forward after the realizations they've come to about their hollow pursuit of recognition and affection from their respective father figures.

Do you like polls?

Do you like ships?

Do you like getting way too worked up about polls involving ships?

Then this might just be the tournament for you! This blog is still a work in progress but I thought it would be fun to pit multiple Invader Zim rarepairs (basically anything that ISN'T ZaDR, ZaTR, ZaGR, TaGR, DaTR, or RaPR) against each other! No hate against any of those prior ships, absolutely not. They're great. But there's other fabulous ships in this fandom that get lots of love too. ZaSR. TaTR. PMaZR. DaLNR and Za7R. And many more! So why not show some appreciation to these rarer ships. AND MAKE THEM FIGHT FOR OUR AMUSEMENT

Pairings will be chosen via nomination. Not sure how many I'll actually put into the bracket yet, just depends on how much interest this bracket gets and how many unique nominations are received. Once the form for that is open, I do intend for people to be able to send in multiple pairs if they'd like.

I've been sucked into it and now I can't stop

This isn’t directed at the asker but if any fanfic writers are reading this I will 100% draw cute full color art to go along with a fic if you use this idea

Zim: Big words from a man built like a slushy cup

Membrane:

Ok, so, the explanation for this one is that I used to love the theory that Professor Membrane was a runaway Irken tallest. (I loved this show since I was like 4 years old when i would stay up late to watch reruns!)He was fed up with the society he came from so he fakes his death and ran away to Urth. He was angry that his people valued his height but not his intellect. He watches humanity for a bit and sees their potential and decided that this ball of dirt was his new home and that he will protect it with his life.

He later gets lonely so he creates Dib and Gaz the same way irkens are produced but a combination of human and his own dna. He keeps the secret of who he is from his children and keeps them in the dark until one day he can not hide it anymore. So Dib is angry, Zim is star struck, and Gaz is just there along for the ride she couldn’t care less.

I am also a furious multi shipper so be prepared for that!