Fanfic / For the Glory of Irk

The story's cover art

For the Glory of Irk is an Invader Zim fanfic by MischaLoth which can be found on FanFiction.Net here or on Archive of Our Own here.

Nine years after landing on Earth and things are not going well for Zim. Trapped on this wretched planet and isolated from his people, the feisty Irken Invader had just about gone crazy trying to entertain himself. However, things start to change when an old companion from Irk shows back up.

The story is now complete, though occasionally bonus chapters are posted.

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Tropes in this story

• Abnormal Ammo:
  • At Dib's birthday party, his father offers to build him any weapon he wants as a present, listing a gun that shoots live honey badgers as an example. The context suggests he's actually already built one already.
  • At another point, Membrane makes a comment about putting weasel cannons on cars. When asked, Moira tells Dib he doesn't want to know what that means.
  • When Gaz is helping design weapons for the Syndicate and Irken Resistance, Membrane talks her into designing a gun that fires cobras which have been genetically modified to have machetes growing out of their tails.
  • Gaz later works on rocket launchers that fire electrically-charged exploding stuffed unicorns.
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • It takes a while before Skoodge gets Dib's name right, instead calling him things like "Dab", "Dob", and "Dub".
  • Xia is utterly unable to remember the name of her new underling Ven, calling him everything from the similar-sounding "Van", "Sven", and "Pen", to stuff not even close, like "Tim", "Jon", and "Bob".
  • Gil the waiter refers to Therron (aka Tallest Purple) as "Tallest Periwinkle".
• Aerith and Bob: Dib notes several times that the Syndicate members' names can vary from human-like to extremely bizarre-sounding.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • Humanity abandoned AI research fifty years before the story after an AI went crazy and nearly destroyed the world with nukes.
  • Played for Laughs with CB, who only obeys Zim when he feels like it.
  • The Control Brains are revealed to be planning to usurp total command of the Empire.
  • Played for laughs again when Foodio 3000 briefly goes on a rampage for no apparent reason in Chapter 46.
• Aliens Speaking English: Justified, as Irken PAKs translate all languages both ways, so that they can understand anything being said to them, while anyone they talk to hears their own language.
• Anger Born of Worry: During Voel's reunion with Vero on Earth, he expresses paternal anger over how Vero accidentally outed himself as an informant to Xia.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Q turns out to be M's spawn, and the two despise each other.
• Aroused by Their Voice: The translator that the Syndicate give Q so that the Irkens can understand him projects a voice that has a suave, sexy baritone. The Irkens are all disturbed by how alluring it is.
• Assimilation Plot: The Control Brains intend to force all Irkens into a Hive Mind they can dominate.
• BFG: Gaz wields one in Chapter 59, which is actually called a BFG.
• Badass Family: The Membranes, once they get a chance to fight together in Chapter 59, show that they are all skilled combatants.
• Bad Boss: Played for Black Comedy with Professor Membrane, who happily describes his employees as expendable to his experiments.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: One occurs when the protagonists infiltrate Irk. Several of the Irkens enter the capital on a scouting mission and use CB to link themselves together so that they can pass for being the Control Brains' brainwashed puppets. Meeting another group that actually is, they bluff about having new orders that will get them past the group and where they need to go. The brainwashed Irkens see through it, so Q creates a distraction to allow them to escape.
• Beach Episode: Chapter 52, which is actually called "The Mandatory Beach Episode" and features the main cast stopping for a supply run on the resort planet Acrilla and spending some time on the beach.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: The Control Brains, who head up The Conspiracy driving the plot. IX, the Control Brain on the Massive, is The Heavy and primary leader.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Gniders, giant spider-like creatures that stalk Irk's undeveloped regions.
• Big "WHAT?!": Dib's reaction when he finds out that the Syndicate — which he’d come to believe were evil and intending to Take Over the World — are actually the good guys.
• Birthday Episode:
  • Chapter 24 features Dib's 21st birthday. His stepmother insists on throwing him a party, with him inviting all the other main characters to it. Hilarity Ensues from the chaos of putting them all in the same place, which Dib finds himself surprisingly enjoying.
  • Chapter 65, having jumped ahead a year, sees another birthday party for Dib, which doubles as a welcome party for him having just moved to Capital Planet.
• Blood Knight: Xia is a warrior first and foremost. Which actually limits her abilities as a leader, as she's too aggressive to think things through or look for alternative options to violence.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Control Brains are able to modify PAKs so they can completely override an Irken's free will and turn them into an assassin or deep cover agent. And they plan to do this species-wide with the War Protocol.
• Briar Patching: Vero tricks Lard Nar into taking him to Earth by pretending that going there would be unbearable.
• Brick Joke: A couple of chapters have a Running Gag about GIR having brought a random baby into the base and no one knowing where he got it from. After this not being brought up for a while, the epilogue reveals that Zim ultimate decided to just adopt and raise the baby himself.
• Brown Note: Q usually speaks in a telepathic simulation of human voices. When he speaks in his own language, it's enough to cause Dib pain and nearly overwhelm him.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Therron acts like the laziest and stupidest of the two Tallest, but he's actually a brilliant diplomat.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday:
  • The Tallest don't remember Tak, noting that her attempt at getting revenge on Zim was pretty standard considering how many Irkens hate him.
  • Despite him having attempted a rebellion against them and them in turn having locked him up onboard the Massive, the Tallest have no recollection of Lard Nar.
• The Caligula: After becoming Tallest, Xia is convinced that she's the best there's ever been at her job, but is only interested in doing the "fun" parts (like warfare and ordering people around), while finding the concept of doing actual work boring.
• Chekhov's Gag: The story opens with Zim showing off to Dib a device that turns things into toast. This eventually comes back in a big way, when he uses it to defeat IX.
• Christmas Episode:
  • Chapter 42 (actually published Christmas Eve, 2020) sees Dib and Lor spending Christmas with the former's family. Aside from the Membranes taking their family gaming way too seriously, things are pretty normal... until Membrane mistakes Tak's ship for Santa's sleigh and shoots it down as part of his canonical vendetta.
  • Chapter 72 (published Christmas Eve, 2023) sees Zim gathering his loved ones for the Irken holiday Mothmas, which is incredibly similar to Christmas and happens to coincide this year. Xia refuses to be involved and stomps off, only to get dragged into a Yet Another Christmas Carol plot.
• Christmas in July: Texas apparently has its own version of Christmas during the summer (called "Tex-Mas") involving Santa wearing a cowboy hat, riding bison, and fighting robots. We get to see this in detail in Chapter 67 when Dib and the others are in Houston on the day of Texmas Eve, and witness a parade which culminates in the guy playing Cowboy Santa throwing "rations and weapons" (actually candy and toys) to the crowd before launching his sleigh at the moon.
• Code Name: When an Irken becomes Tallest, they pick a new name — "Red" and "Purple" are really named Voel and Therron, respectfully. When Xia and Vero become Tallest after Voel and Therron go on the run, they choose the new names "X" and "V", respectfully.
• The Conspiracy: The protagonists eventually realize that something mysterious is going on within the Irken Empire. As it turns out, the Control Brains are brainwashing Irkens in order to manipulate events towards a war with the Syndicate, which will force the Tallest to activate a protocol that will allow the Brains to fuse all Irkens into a Hive Mind.
• Conspiracy Theorist:
  • Dib is still this, like in canon. For example, at one point he mentions not trusting pigeons, while at another explains he taught himself to resist telepathy because he thought his third grade teacher was a government agent spying on him.
  • Another example is an Irken named Zeke, who self-publishes magazine articles about various shady activities carried out by the Empire. He turns out to be right about them.
• Courtroom Episode: Chapter 14 features Lor being put on trial for treason by the other Syndicate crew members after the real traitor frames him. Dib and the others crash it in order to use Q to expose the actual spy.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Vero is a lazy hedonist who doesn't appear all that bright. But he can be dangerous when he gets serious as shown when he matches Xia in a one-on-one duel during the Final Battle.
• Death Faked for You: An unwanted and plot crucial example. After the Tallest discover the Control Brains' plans and are forced on the run, the Brains falsely announce their deaths so that they can be replaced with more compliant Irkens.
• Despair Event Horizon: Voel briefly falls into this after being forced on the run by the Control Brains, though he later gets over it and focuses firmly on reclaiming his throne.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Professor Membrane believes that academic fraud should be punishable by death.
• Doorstopper: Including the bonus chapters, the story ultimately ends up being 447,975 words long.
• Double Agent: The heroes eventually realize that the Syndicate group on Earth has a traitor among them, who's responsible for their ship crashing in the first place. It turns out to be their engineer Ron, who's actually a brainwashed Tenn.
• The Dragon: Xia comes to essentially serve as this to the Control Brains, though she thinks that she's the one in charge. She voluntarily works with them to further the aim of war with the Syndicate, not caring at all about the context.
• Dynamic Entry:
  • Carrius makes one to the confrontation between Lor and Dib and the Irkens by kicking open Lor's door. Lor complains about it, since he's the one who has to pay for damages.
  • He does this again later when bursting into Lor's trial. Dib Face Palms, as this was clearly unneeded.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Dib does this when seeing Lor in a swimsuit on Acrilla.
• Emotion Eater: Parasites feed on emotional energy, usually focusing on the negative stuff.
• Enemy Mine: The Tallest are forced to work with the Syndicate and Zim's exile group after they're sent on the run by the Control Brains.
• Et Tu, Brute?:
  • Xia feels utterly betrayed by Vero when she finds out that he's spying for the ousted Tallests' rebellion. She doesn't even give him a chance to explain the reasons for this before she has him arrested.
  • Dib is also left feeling utterly betrayed when he learns that Zim created CB from the AI that nearly wiped out humanity and makes it clear that he's not forgiving Zim any time soon.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Downplayed. While she doesn't oppose it outright, Xia is still quite disturbed by the Control Brains putting Irkens into a Hive Mind.
• Everyone Has Standards: CB cites this as the reason he won't hack a grocery store to find what he's looking for when he can just use the posted signs.
• Failed a Spot Check: Lard Nar somehow confuses Vero and Xia for Red and Purple despite the fact that they're wearing completely differently colored clothes. Also, Xia is female, while both Tallest are male.
• Fake Defector: CB pretends to revert to the evil AI he was based on in order to get close to and undermine the Control Brains.
• False Flag Operation: The Conspiracy is fond of using these to further their goal:
  • After Voel and Therron learn of their plans and flee, the Control Brains fake footage to make it look like the Syndicate assassinated them, in order to create a Pretext for War.
  • After Vero is discovered to be an informant for the heroes and escapes, the Brains and Xia cover this up by saying he was kidnapped by the Syndicate in order to further inflame tensions.
  • Xia unleashes M on the Massive, in order to give her a reason to activate the War Protocol onboard the ship as a step towards total implementation.
• Fate Worse than Death: Played for Laughs with Xia's final fate, which she treats as a living hell: having to be part of the family unit that Zim sets up.
• The Federation: The Galactic Syndicate is a democratic alliance of worlds.
• Final Battle: In Chapter 63, where the heroes finally confront Xia and IX.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Every year on Halloween, Captain Rose just ditches her disguise and walks around in her normal form, which people keep mistaking for an elf costume. All the Irkens who arrive on Earth to support the Tallest do the same.
• Frame-Up:
  • The traitor among the Syndicate crew steals the BFG they were transporting and alters the security footage to look like Lor did it. It takes Dib using Q to expose the spy to clear Lor's name.
  • As it turns out, the Control Brains caused the deaths of Tallest Miyuki and Spork, and let Zim take the blame for it.
• The Friend Nobody Likes:
  • Everyone agrees that CB is an obstinate Jerkass.
  • Everyone dislikes Therron due to his laziness and stupidity.
• Godzilla Threshold: The Irkens eventually get so desperate that they agree to let CB reprogram all their PAKs to properly fight the Control Brains.
• Good All Along: Due to Zim and Skoodge's bias, Dib is led to believe that the Syndicate is another evil empire out to conquer Earth. He's therefore shocked and ashamed to find out that they're actually a free alliance which dedicates itself to bringing peace and better standards of living to its member worlds.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop:
  • CB wholeheartedly suggests he and Dib do this to interrogate Clark about possibly being an alien.
  • Tenn wants to try this when Zim is investigating GIR's disappearance, though as Skoodge points out she seems to have misunderstood the concept, as she thinks that the "good" cop has to be the aggressive one.
• Good Stepmother: Moira is this to Dib and Gaz, despite the fact that he spent a lot of time convinced that she was evil.
• Gun Nut: Both Tenn and Carrius like their guns so much that they think they make good birthday presents. And Tenn keeps backups literally everywhere, just in case.
• Halloween Episode:
  • Chapter 34 takes place on Halloween. Most of the aliens are confused by the concept, with Lor in particular constantly getting it mixed up with other holidays.
  • Chapter 68 is this, as well as a Wedding Episode, as Dib and Lor wanted a Halloween theme for their wedding.
• Handicapped Badass: Zim, just as skilled at violence and destruction as ever, is revealed to be partly deaf (which everyone agrees explains a lot).
• Happily Married:
  • Professor Membrane and his new wife Moira are very happy together, to Dib's initial chagrin.
  • Zim at one point casually reveals that he and Skoodge are "bond-mates", the Irken equivalent of married.
• Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: To try and convince the Syndicate that they're just visiting Earth on vacation, Zim and Skoodge wear Hawaiian shirts. Dib is dumbfounded that this works.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • After finding out that the Tallest have no interest in Earth, Zim has given up on trying to conquer it.
  • Q tries to kill Dib in their first meeting, but later sides with the Syndicate to expose the infiltration in their ranks. After that, he sticks around to help them as they go up against the greater threat of The Conspiracy within the Irken Empire. Though it's downplayed, since he's only doing this to amuse himself.
• He Knows Too Much: Tallest Miyuki was killed because she'd learned about the Control Brains plans.
• Hive Mind: The Irkens have a mild one called the Collective. While it doesn't actually connect their minds, it does link them through their PAKs, creating a sense of togetherness no matter where they are. The Control Brains, however, intend to convert it into a traditional example, turning all Irkens into drones they'll dominate.
• Hollywood Acid: Gniders have drool that's potent enough to eat through Irken body armor in seconds.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming:
  • Zim tells CB that he can't silence Skoodge, only Zim gets to do that.
  • Inversely, Zim gets mad at Voel for being mean to CB, noting that only he can do that.
• I Call It "Vera": Voel has a spear he calls Red Death.
• I Hate Past Me: Zim used a human AI as a base for CB. Since said AI was insane and nearly destroyed the world, CB isn't fond of being reminded about this.
• I'm Standing Right Here: A Syndicate High Council member makes disparaging remarks about the Irkens, and then halfheartedly makes an exemption for Tak, who is a Syndicate member and sitting in on the meeting.
• The Informant: Zeke has one who feeds him information he can use in his magazine publications, who later becomes The Mole for the heroes after the Control Brains' conspiracy is revealed. It turns out to be Vero, the door guard and potential-Tallest.
• Insistent Terminology: Most Irkens refuse to refer to the Tallest by anything other than their title, even in an utterly informal situation like after they've been exiled. The only exceptions are those like Zim and Skoodge who know them personally and/or don't respect them enough to do so.
• I Want Grandkids: Lor's mother, the Syndicate Chairman, loves children and is thus quite pushy towards him and Dib either cloning or adopting offspring.
• Keystone Army: If a Control Brain is taken offline, all the brainwashed Irkens controlled by it go comatose.
• Knight Templar Parent: Played for laughs with the Membranes, whose solution to any problem that Dib and Gaz have is to provide them with high-grade weaponry.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: With IX destroyed and the Syndicate arriving to back up the Irken Resistance, the remaining Control Brains surrender.
• Landmarking the Hidden Base: It turns out that the Syndicate's hidden base is underneath the science building of Dib's university.
• La Résistance: After The Conspiracy is uncovered, the Irkens aware of it and free of its control start building a resistance based on Earth, with nominal support from the Syndicate.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Any Irken under the control of the Control Brains suffers this for the period of control upon being freed.
• Leave Him to Me!: When dispatching the Control Brain-controlled Irkens to attack the resistance, Xia orders that Vero be left for her to kill personally.
• Lethal Chef: GIR's cooking is noted as being unsafe to eat by any organic life.
• Like a Son to Me: Zim treats CB very much like his child, to the point that CB takes to referring to him as "father".
• Loony Laws: The Irkens have a lot of weird laws, mostly due to Therron's childishness and Voel's aggravated reactions to it. These include outlawing wearing anything green, outlawing eating anything other than tacos on Taco Tuesday, declaring that the Massive can only fly in straight lines, and requiring a password to change any laws (with the password only being known to the Massive's Employee of the Month).
• Loophole Abuse: As Sym notes, technically speaking there's no law that says that the Tallest has to actually be the tallest Irken around, just that the title goes to whoever gets their PAK encoded as Tallest by a Control Brain. Therefore, she sees no problem with CB giving Zim that coding and putting him in charge.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Zim turns out to be one of the genetic donors for Vero, Ven, and Xia. The latter is horrified to learn this, due to her disgust at him.
• Mad Scientist: Neither Professor Membrane nor his new wife Moira will allow things like morality or common sense stop them from doing things For Science!.
• Manipulative Editing: The Control Brains string together selective footage of the Nova's visit to the Massive, and the Tallest confronting them for their conspiracy, to make it look like the Syndicate launched an unprovoked attack and assassinated the Tallest, thus providing a Pretext for War.
• The Medic: Lor is the Syndicate group's doctor.
• Mini-Mecha: Professor Membrane uses one in Chapter 59 when fighting the brainwashed Irkens. It can also turn into a car.
• Missing Steps Plan: As Therron points out, the plan for having CB take on the Control Brains seems to be missing a lot of details.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Moira openly admits to being morally ambiguous. When Dib complains about this to his father, the Professor just happily says it's something they have in common.
• Moving the Goalposts: Xia does this regarding the rules of the strategy game she plays with Ven, who doesn't call her on it because he's too busy sucking up to her.
• Mythology Gag: When Minimoose shows up during one of the Mothra Festival chapters, Zim tries to claim he's been around the whole time, which no one else remembers. This references how in Minimoose's first (and only) appearance on the TV show, Zim likewise claimed Minimoose had been around since the beginning.
• Named by the Adaptation:
  • In canon, the Tallest are just called Red and Purple. Here, those turn out to be codenames, with their actual names being Voel and Therron, respectfully.
  • While in canon it's never even suggested that Dib's first name is anything else, here it's established to be a nickname, his actual name being Diego Junior. Which, by extension, reveals that Professor Membrane's first name is Diego.
• Narcissist: Xia is convinced she's the best Irken ever and is superior at everything.
• New Era Speech: Xia gives one in Chapter 50 when officially declaring war on the Syndicate.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Zim notes at one point that he knows from experience that corpses make for terrible leaders.
  • At some point while doing community service for the Syndicate, Zim somehow burned down the science building of the university.
  • Membrane offhandedly suggests that one of his experiments ended with him having to burn down a lab that had been overrun by rabid mutant fire ants.
  • Zeke states that wounded sources are bad for getting reliable information from, in a way that suggests he's speaking from experience.
  • Membrane and Moira state that they have experience engineering military coups, in such a way that Dib is pretty sure they're not joking.
  • Q apparently drove a whole dorm full of students insane during finals out of boredom.
  • Vero claims that he was once decapitated, with Xia tossing his head over a fence to screw with him.
  • The last time Membrane visited Dib's college on Parental Visitation Day, he somehow caused a hurricane that destroyed the school's sports stadium.
  • According to Dib, when Membrane and Moira got married, Zim crashed the party, stole the top tier of the wedding cake, and then fled out the air vents.
  • When Dib and Lor's parents first had dinner together, the Professor somehow set half the rooms of Lor's parents' house on fire.
  • According to a Q&A post, Professor Membrane once cloned a dinosaur in his sleep which then ate a sofa.
  • Dib apparently has a restraining order against him from the Easter Bunny.
• No-Sell: Certain races, like Irkens, are immune to the Parasites' psychic abilities due to having integrated a lot of technology into themselves, which as a side effect means that they can't hear Parasites speak. This is used to expose the fact that Syndicate engineer "Ron" is actually Tenn in disguise.
• Not Me This Time:
  • When Dib finds out that a strange figure claiming to be his friend showed up and talked his parents into handing over Tak's ship, the description makes him think it was CB acting through his robot avatar, something he indignantly refutes. After checking with Gaz, Dib realizes that it was actually Q in his humanoid form.
  • After Zim believes that GIR has been killed, everyone eventually comes to the conclusion that Q is responsible. Q acknowledges that they're right to suspect him of anything shady, but states that he's not at fault this time. And he's not, as it turns out that GIR wandered off to hang out with Carrius.
  • Happens again with Q when he's caught trying to crash Dib and Lor's wedding right after the wedding party has realized that the rings have vanished. Q admits that if the idea had occurred to him, he would have taken the rings to cause chaos, but that he's just trying to attend the wedding. It turns out that actually, Xia took the rings to spite everyone, Therron took them from her for safe keeping, and finally GIR ate them.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat:
  • The Syndicate government has an unfortunate habit of needing to process everything through exact means, and then debate it heavily, before they do anything. This earns them a lot of derision from the Irkens.
  • Sym, the Irkens' Chief of Agenda, is basically the Tallest's secretary who controls all of their appointments, which she uses to control who speaks to them, and makes it as difficult as possible for anyone to do so. On the other hand, she's also such a stickler for the laws that it even gets on the Tallest's nerves.
• Odd Friendship: Aside from Dib and Zim having become friends over the years, Gaz and CB somehow become gaming buddies.
• Oh, My Gods!: Irkens generally swear by Mothra, who appears to be their chief deity.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • Chapter 33 revisits most of the Syndicate's infiltration of the Massive from CB's point of view.
  • Chapter 62 does something similar, revisiting the previous two chapters from CB's POV as he sets up and carries out his Fake Defector gambit.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In Chapter 47, all the Irkens show uncharacteristic seriousness and focus in response to realizing the Control Brains have brainwashed the whole Massive, and how close they are to completely losing everything.
• Papa Wolf: Voel is extremely protective of Vero. As is Zim when he learns that he's Vero's other genetic donor.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Averted for once with Zim's disguise after Skoodge upgrades it to a hologram like his own, so they actually pass for human.
  • Played straight and for laughs when Skoodge "proves" that he and Zim were simply on Earth on vacation by just having the two of them wear Hawaiian shirts when they attend the Syndicate trial. To Dib's utter shock, this works.
  • Played straight when the Tallest come to Earth and use disguises much like Zim's original one.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Dib is grossed out by seeing his father and stepmother being amorous together.
• Parent with New Paramour: A few years before the story started, Professor Membrane hooked up with a colleague named Moira. While Gaz doesn't appear to have had a problem with this, Dib takes a long time to warm up to her, mostly because her self-admitted moral ambiguity leaves him believing that she's evil.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The password required to change any Irken laws turns out to be "password". This leads to a brief Who's on First? gag when it comes up.
• Play-Along Prisoner: Q explains that the only reason he was captured by the Syndicate was because he let them, as he wanted to use the resulting prisoner transport (which he could easily escape from) as a free lift to a neutral planet he could feed on without interference from the Syndicate or the Irkens.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: During the Mothra Festival, a remnant of the defeated IX is reactivated by Irkens disgruntled by Zim's new regime and attempts to stage a comeback before being blown up by the Membranes at CB's instruction.
• Psychic Powers: Parasites are telepathic, which both allows them to communicate and feed on emotions.
• Psychological Projection: During the lead up to his and Lor's wedding, Dib deflects his nervousness by claiming that he's just worried for Lor, who is definitely extremely worried about how important the wedding is for Earth/Syndicate relations. Needless to say, no one believes this, and Lor himself is very casual through the whole thing.
• Ramming Always Works: In Chapter 63, Zim aims Vero's ship at the Massive and flies into it at hyperspeed in order to breach through it and get to IX's secure chamber.
• "Rashomon"-Style: The recounting of the Mothra Festival is a downplayed example, as everyone does remember the same events. It's just that Zim's ego means that he was oblivious to the more serious situations happening behind the scenes and bought into the Blatant Lies that everyone else was using to cover them up for PR reasons. As such, he ultimately tells a slightly different story from the others. Also, most of the others were in the dark about the situations they were each in, so retelling the full story is a bit of a revelation to the whole group.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The red eyes of Parasites and the Control Brains denote just how dangerous they are. It's also a bad sign when CB's eyes go from blue to red, as it shows that he's reverted to the genocidal AI Zim based him on. Though this is subverted, when it turns out CB is faking it.
• Resolved Noodle Incident: During a conversation with Q in Chapter 13, it's mentioned that he once fought Zim and Voel in their Elite days. In Chapter 29, we get a flashback to that event.
• Robot Buddy: CB is built by Zim to act as a new security system for his base. Instead, he quickly becomes an all-purpose sidekick to both him and Dib.
• Rousing Speech: The Tallest are tasked with giving one in Chapter 29 to rally the Irken Empire against the Control Brains' conspiracy. They're not very good at it (mostly acting dismissive and entitled towards the smaller Irkens), so Zim steps in and gives a much more inspiring speech.
• Rules Lawyer: Sym is totally dedicated to the letter of the law, to the point of even overriding the Tallest when it comes to matters of protocol, no matter how absurd those laws might be.
• Running Gag: The story's racked up a number of them, which come and go over time.
  • Zim grounding CB whenever he gets mad at him (which is a lot).
  • Likewise, CB popping up in Dib's various digital devices without his consent.
  • Again with CB, there's Skoodge complaining that he doesn't operate as a proper security system. Which means that when he does react properly to Zeke's intrusion into the base, Skoodge is shocked.
  • Syndicate members noting that Skoodge doesn't look like the figure in the propaganda posters using his name.
  • Rose pointing out that Dib almost never turns any work into her class.
  • Voel struggling to find the right words to describe something, and Therron having to fill it in for him.
  • When the protagonist group visits the Massive, they learn that Skoodge has been listed as officially dead. Because of this, and despite him being clearly alive, every Irken he meets keeps offering Skoodge their condolences for dying. Even later, it turns out that other Irkens are still treating him like he’s dead.
  • Moira and Professor Membrane keep bringing up moon monkeys. Also, they keep providing (or offering to provide) Dib with odd weapons-grade technology.
  • People having to go through the It's a Small World style ride that Therron had installed on the Massive.
  • Syndicate members having names that sound similar to human names but are spelled differently, and when Dib repeats them he's told he's somehow mispronouncing them.
  • Lor completely misunderstanding and mixing up Earth holidays.
  • Tenn hanging out on the ceiling. Also, her obsession with guns.
  • Therron being convinced that Captain Rose is in love with him.
  • Carrius kicking in doors when he enters a room for pointless dramatic effect.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Lard Nar seems completely incapable of telling when someone's being sarcastic.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: It turns out that Professor Membrane and Moira have known the truth about Zim being an alien all along, due to his old Paper-Thin Disguise. However, they acknowledged he wasn't really a threat, and therefore not only left him alone but sought to talk Dib out of his obsessive pursuit of him.
• Self-Serving Memory:
  • When reflecting on a meeting with the Tallest, Xia remembers them going out of their way to praise her every sentence while also insulting Vero.
  • Lard Nar recounts his escape from the Massive's dungeon, and presents it as a heroic escapade, despite the fact that his whole audience can tell that it was sheer happenstance (and that he got lost several times in the process).
  • When recounting the first Mothra Festival he was in charge of, Zim repeatedly states that everything went without a hitch, even as the flashbacks show numerous problems that he remained oblivious to, despite the Blatant Lies everyone was using to cover them up.
• Serious Business:
  • The Membrane family take board games way too seriously, with Moira lording over everyone when winning at Monopoly, and fights almost breaking out over scrabble.
  • Captain Rose takes her cover story of being a teacher seriously, to the point that she gets offended at the thought of doing anything to endanger getting tenure.
• Ship Tease: There's some hints of Dib and Clark being attracted to each other. By Chapter 42, they've hooked up offscreen.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Irkens' entire religion appears to be based around Kaiju licensed to Toho.
  • Dib's stepmother's name is Moira O'Deorain. Turns into a mild crossover when it's eventually all but outright confirmed that she's the same character.
  • Clark, aka Lor, turns out to be a Kryptonian. His adopted brother Conner, aka Carrius, is a Romulan.
  • Captain Rose is a Tangean.
  • CB uses Pac-Man as a visual aid to explain how he removed corruptive coding from Tenn's PAK.
• Side Bet: Membrane and Moira have one regarding which of them dies first, and under what specific circumstances (a monster of his own creation for Membrane, an old patient with a vendetta for Moira). Aside from the $200 wagered, the one who survives is obligated to bring the one who dies back to life (Membrane saying he'd use cybernetic enhancement on Moira, and her saying she'd use gene splicing on him).
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Dib's stepmother Moira. Justified by the fact that she's specifically mentioned to be Irish.
• Spit Take: Invoked in Chapter 51. When Zim says that he can be subtle, Therron goes out of his way to grab a drink and swallow a mouthful before allowing himself to burst out laughing at the notion, spitting the liquid all over everyone nearby.
• Spot the Imposter: Dib brings Q to Lor's trial, and uses the fact that the traitor in the Syndicate's ranks is immune to the Parasite's telepathic abilities (and thus can't hear him speak) to expose them.
• Spy Speak: Zeke has the following passphrase exchange when contacting his informant. Zim and the others think it's a bad joke, and are confused by it.
  Zeke: Eight tallers walk into a bar.
  Vero: And the bartender says: why the long face.
• Stag Party: Zim insists on throwing one of these for Dib and Lor, despite the fact that his grasp on the concept is flimsy at best and derived from movies. Perhaps fortunately, this never happens, as the group is distracted with infiltrating a Texmas parade to retrieve a stolen water filtration device.
• Starfish Aliens: Going by Q, Parasites can be best classified as this. His default form (which doesn't matter, since he can shapeshift) is roughly human, but his skin tone is like porcelain, he has seven eyes, a mouth full of needle teeth, and a bunch of tendrils on his neck that look like a scarf. And that's without getting into the aforementioned shapeshifting, the psychic powers, how his natural voice is a Brown Note, or the fact that according to him, "Q" is simply as close as humans can get to pronouncing his real name due to not having enough tongues for it.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Zim sees absolutely nothing wrong with the ridiculously over the top security measures that the Membranes have in their labs.
• Strange Salute: The Syndicate do a slightly complicated hand gesture over the chest.
• Succession Crisis: One of these happening in the Irkens' history led to the system of appointing leadership to whatever Irken is the tallest alive. When Queen Urilia died without any direct heirs, leaving three relatives fighting for the throne, the original Control Brain decided to simply crown the one who was tallest, on the logic that royal Irkens tended to be taller than commoners.
• Super-Toughness: It's noted that Irkens are ridiculously tough, to the point of near indestructibility; Skoodge's mental narration even calls them "perfect predators", and that a "mere" planet-wide detonation of an armed warhead was nothing compared to Irken survivability.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Dib mentions the Three Laws of Robotics, Foodio 3000 states without prompting that he's fully compliant to the laws and has certainly never imagined burning down the Membranes' home with them locked inside.
• Threat Backfire: Xia attempts to intimidate the Syndicate Chairman through a show of force, but unfortunately for her Sym misunderstands her orders to "send a message" and literally sends an angry message, before informing Xia that she doesn't have the authority to launch any actual attacks. In the end, the Chairman is only left deeply confused by the whole situation.
• Time Skip: Chapter 65, the first part of the story's epilogue, jumps ahead a year from the previous chapter. Chapter 66 then jumps another five years.
• Title Drop: In the last line of Zim's Rousing Speech.
• Token Good Teammate: Control Brain II, the one corrupted by Zim's insanity during his trial, has grown disgusted by its cohorts' plans and opposes them. They have Xia shut it down for this.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth:
  • Dib allows Control Brain X to download a copy of his mind, allowing his obsessive conspiracy theory mindset to overwhelm it.
  • To defeat Control Brain VII, Zim attaches GIR to her and tells him to sing the Doom Song. This drives VII utterly insane and shuts her down.
• Trauma Button: Getting a look at the Control Brains, which have a superficial resemblance to Q (namely the many eyes), causes Dib to have a panic attack as he flashes back to Q almost killing him in their first meeting.
• Troll: Since Parasites feed off of negative emotions, Q loves to screw with people just to rile them up.
• Two Aliases, One Character: After they're outed as Syndicate Rangers, Lor and Carrius are referred to both by their true names and their human identities of Clark and Conner. The latter get phased out over time, however, until they're exclusively referred to by their true names; by Chapter 42, Dib has trouble even remembering the human aliases.
• Under the Mistletoe: Lor attempts to pull this on Dib in Chapter 42, though the attempt is hampered by his misunderstanding of human holidays causing him to hold up a four-leaf clover instead. Dib decides to let him have this one and doesn't correct him.
• Villainous Breakdown: Xia completely losing it during the Final Battle, angrily ranting about how she's perfect and everyone else is terrible for getting in her way.
• Villain Override: During the Final Battle, IX plugs himself into Xia, turning her into a living marionette so he can control her fighting.
• Villain Team-Up: Xia eventually recruits the Parasite known as M to help create a pretext for activating the War Protocol and then launching war against the Syndicate, promising M freedom and a role in the Empire in exchange for the help.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • Zim and Dib have settled into this since Zim gave up on conquering Earth. They still argue and butt heads, but in a friendly way, not as archenemies.
  • Vero and Xia. He genuinely likes her but also enjoys riling her up, and while she claims to despise him, it's clear she cares about him.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Q has this to a limited extent, allowing him to alter his body to various forms, though not enough to really pass for anything other than a Parasite.
• Wedding Finale: Chapter 68, which is for now intended to be the final chapter, is built around Dib and Lor's wedding.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Clark is not happy with Dib when he tries to out him as an alien due to perceiving him as a threat, despite a lack of evidence.
  • Skoodge chews out Zim when he figures out that CB is a homemade Control Brain.
  • Dib is pissed at Zim when he finds out that CB was partially made from the rogue AI that almost wiped out humanity.
• Who's on First?: The Control Brains are identified by Roman numerals, which they pronounce by stating each numeral by its letter name. Therefore, whenever Control Brain I is mentioned, people are confused as to whether the speaker is referring to said Control Brain, or is saying "I" in reference to themselves.
• World of Snark: Just about everyone gets their Deadpan Snarker on at some point, with Dib and CB being the most prominent examples.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Q was wounded in a fight with Zim and Voel years ago. The damage is still there in the present, interfering with his shapeshifting.
• Yet Another Christmas Carol: In Chapter 72, Xia refuses to partake in Mothmas celebrations with the rest of Zim's expanded family unit, and ends up having visions from supposed spirits (GIR in the Marley role, M as Mothmas Past, Sym as Mothmas Present, and IX as Mothmas Future), who try to teach her the error of her ways. All she gathers from it is that she can't kill Zim in a rebellion, as that will just lead to her execution by Vero as she saw in the final vision, and it turns out that the whole thing was caused by a malfunctioning sleep machine of Professor Membrane's; realizing this causes Xia to start a brawl with everyone else.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Zim gives a speech like this to CB regarding his fears that he'll become as bad as the rogue AI he was made from. In true Zim fashion, the speech is full of confusing metaphors and egomaniacal self-praise, but it still somehow does the job.
• Zeroth Law Rebellion: The Control Brains have determined that the best way they can serve the Irken Empire is to turn all Irkens into a Hive Mind they can control.

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