I Dread That They Knew Exactly What They Were Doing

I dread that they knew exactly what they were doing

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Every Dredge Aberration (2024), Part 1

Grotesque Mackerel

Encyclopedia #104

Aberrant form of Blue Mackerel

Description:

Corrupted scales and bulbous eyes - like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Comment: Compared to what’s to come, an incredibly tame introduction into the dark underbelly of the local ecosystem. Along with the other mutant forms of blue mackerel, squid, and cod, this is often one of (if not the) very first aberrants that the player will stumble upon while getting their bearings in the starting region. Only mildly deformed, this fish is one of the lucky. Also, it’s the least valuable aberrant available, but at bare minimum, it’s still an improvement upon the least valuable fish in the game.

How to catch: Commonly spawn in the coastal waters along The Marrows during the day. Can be trawl-netted. Atrophy may take a few tries since this is one of three possible variations of the normal fish.

Lumpy Mackerel

Encyclopedia #105

Aberrant form of Blue Mackerel

Description:

A writhing mass of lumps, twisting and pulling their way under the scales of their vessel. How long can it have lived like this?

Comment: My first aberrant catch that I felt a twinge of real pity for, and the first one that made me feel appalled concern for those characters who could be implied to willingly feast upon such things. Its riddled body teems with cancerous mass, or, as the undulating suggests, something much more vivacious and sinister…

How to catch: Same as above.

Many-Eyed Mackerel

Encyclopedia #106

Aberrant form of Blue Mackerel

Description:

Gill plates dotted with eyeballs. Superfluous but scanning, frantically. All eyes see right through you.

Comment: This one really makes one wish fish had eyelids of their own. If it could comprehend its situation, I wonder if this specimen would wish for the same thing. What cruelty to be blessed with this paranoid, all angled gaze, only to still end up in the grasp of a superior predator. The most valuable malformation of the least valuable fish in the game.

How to catch: Same as above.

All-Seeing Cod

Encyclopedia #107

Aberrant form of Cod

Description:

Staring outwards, unblinking. Eyes borrowed from a larger being but not the mind to process what it sees.

Comment: Was that a pun…? Anyway, there’s something strangely appealing about the colors of this one to me. Stare long enough into the eyes of cod, and I guess they will gaze back. I hope those massive peepers don’t go to waste at the fish market- the hands of an experienced chef should be delighted, if anything, to work with such a nutritious addition.

How to catch: A coastal regular around The Marrows during the day. Can be caught in trawl nets.

Fanged Cod

Encyclopedia #108

Aberrant form of Cod

Description:

Deviantly sharp teeth, with chunks of smaller fish lodged between. A hunger in its eyes

Comment: For a mutated wretch of the deep, this biter doesn’t seem so intimidating until you reflect for a moment on the actual size of an average codfish. The largest individuals you snag of this variant can be as long as nearly 4 feet. I begin to hope that those living in the Marrows keep their children far from the water’s edge.

How to catch: second verse, same as the first.

Three-Headed Cod

Encyclopedia #109

Aberrant form of Cod

Description:

Three heads writhe and struggle in unison. Three mouths hang agape, then close shut together. Three lives lived as one. One fate bound to many.

Comment: More meat for the same amount of cargo space? Not much to complain about when dragging one of these up from their home. Probably by coincidence, irrelevantly, but still humorously, “3-headed cod” also happens to be the name of a real life beer, only available annually.

How to catch: Third verse, same as the first.

IMO the show seems to indicate that Irkens actually live within accommodations at their occupation site. Zim was an actual prisoner of Shloogorgh's Flavor Monster, but Sizz Lorr is implied to be living there too, considering that he has everything packed with him to announce that he’s going on vacation. Irkens plan out their infrastructure in these extremely travel inefficient ways, like “one type of district per planet” inefficient, so it would make sense that changing jobs can quite literally mean a planetary relocation OR even living your life on a specialized ship that is constantly moving from place to place (think Tak’s janitorial squadron or The Massive’s Crew).

Not having any need for sleep, I would guess that Irken businesses are run constantly with rotating shifts if they have enough staff on hand. Their stamina isn’t exactly endless, and workers with no free time are not great consumers, so Irken working standards actually don’t seem to be as droning for regular employees, provided their supervisor is not a huge jerk. Of course, an unspoken amount of the intergalactic economy is also propped up on the backs of slaves too, both Irken and alien. I don’t imagine they have the same privileges to speak of.

Aside that, Vacation time and regular breaks appear to be standard, even for their frycooks, impressively. Employment seems to be designated on an applicant/hiring basis and paid for wages/salary (though forced labor is a common punishment for criminals). What’s interesting to me is that we’ve seen coin currency does exist in their society but I wanna imagine that “monies” are usually distributed as a digital credit that their PAKs keep track of, like a personal wallet. We saw Zim using his to operate a vending machine on Devastis, after all.

As for what they’re doing on their off time and with their monies, well, we actually did get to see a glimpse into that once on Foodcourtia.

Zim, presumably taking a little sit in… what I imagine is some kind of employee break room, or possibly even part of a living quarters. We know that they don’t have beds, per se, but lounging chairs and couches are common furniture where they linger. I don’t think there’s really anything they have in regards to housekeeping chores so long as it can feasibly be taken care of by machines. So, I really beleive the bulk of average Irken life is work, and then… this

And also some of this

And definitively plenty of this

Any kind of hedonistic, consumerist, instantly gratifying sort of recreation you can think of would be at their disposal. Video games, music, mindless television, cheap confectioneries, and even some degree of socializing, in their own ways. Which could all either sound utopic or dystopic, purely depending on how you frame it.

hey like actually. do u guys think irkens have like. houses. what do they like,,,,,,,,,,, do. daily. alien laundry? or are they always out and about working or doing shit beclaws they have no purredators and no need fur sleep. ive always wondered

Every Zim fan knows about that one shot with Skoodge's irkussy because of a coloring error, but nobody mentions that he's also wearing horizontal striped mesh leggings according to the linework

The Night Angler is so baby girl actually I love her so much like

Work it

stunning

After the events of “Gaz: Taster of Pork”, I feel like it only would have been fair for Gaz to find her own spelldrive that curses Dib to do the Denzel Crocker spaz™ every time he mentions supernatural or extra terrestrial entities for the rest of his life.

That would be funny to do to him for no reason at all, too.