What The What? Geez, I Know Its Dark, But Come On, YouTube. Well, Thanks For Letting Me Know Because

What the what? Geez, I know it’s dark, but come on, YouTube. well, thanks for letting me know because I literally wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. While that’s a bit of a bummer (I LOVE the accompanying visual novel and sountrack format of that vid), I was still able to find another link to Wayne June’s narration of the text! Hopefully this one won’t give you such trouble since I didn’t see any age restriction on it.

 https://youtu.be/HM40Yw-3vH4?si=S5Lou8NjVLAq4ri3

I so adore this one. Not my favorite from Lovecraft but absolutely within the top 5. Wayne June never misses, and this is no exception

“Kidnap the Sandy Claws” but it’s Skoodge and GIR and Minimoose trying to impress/surprise Zim by going off all on their own against the Dib stink

*chef’s kiss* And you know what the REAL fucked up bit of irony is?

Zim isn’t even fighting alone. Dib is.

No matter what an antisocial, hazardous ally Zim makes, he STILL gets more barebones emotional support from the litany of defective machines he creates and surrounds himself with than Dib can reliably get from the very family he lives with. Zim STILL has a tool like Skoodge lining up to be his punching-bag/sidekick whether he wants that or not. He has an affectionate little companion in minimoose and an enthusiastic slave in GIR even if the latter is much less competent and even if Zim is emotionally willing to move on from them with barely a whiff of grief, thanks to the whole list of things probably wrong with his PAK.

He shoos off, mistreats, or outright destroys 99% of the beings crazy enough to team up with him, while Dib is. Freaking yearning for what Zim has and he can’t get it. He’s only some brooding works-alone antihero because he can’t get anyone else on his side. He’d love being in a whole team, he joined the Swollen Eyeballs for crying out loud. Gaz is the only close person who at least believes in Zim’s true identity, and for that she’s constantly dragged against her will into Dib’s antics. Literally refers to her as a sidekick, infodumps his updates on Zim to her, more than once contacted her for help when in a sticky situation no matter how delusional you’d have to be to assume Gaz gives one flying eff about exposing some idiot alien. Like, Dib wants them to be Dipper and Mabel Pines so badly it’s sad.

Tak shows up, shows the smallest bit of curiosity toward his hobby, and makes it clear that she has a bone to pick with Zim and it’s an entire buzzkill to Dib that Zim would barge in later and reveal that Tak is supposedly the same as him, if not a worse threat. One of the most genuinely hurt and snuffed out moments Dib has in the show was over finding out Dwicky was just humoring him at best and didn’t turn out to be a true partner in fighting the bad guy(s). Even with EVERYTHING else wrong and warped about Zib, his willingness to work with others, protect another Dib, and actively want a like-minded friend around him that isn’t a drone is not something he inherited from the parasite clinging to his skull.

There’s no “probably” about how that feeling of isolation is getting to him. “Vindicated” basically flayed that part of him open for all to see but it leaks through in every single time his eyes light up at being told by anyone that they’re here for him in this war.

Honest truth, with every episode of this messed up show I finish rewatching I’m more are more sure that Dib is just as incompetent and short-sighted when it comes to his “mission” as Zim is. But it’s so funny to me that while Zim just makes bad plans, has awful priorities, and improvises a lot by the seat of his pants, Dib’s incompetent in the classical bumbling villain sense. Like, he’s doing the right thing, he generally has clever approaches and insights, makes full use of his resources, yet,

He’s still aesthetically and narratively such an antihero, the poor dweeb.

Observe, my magnificent Venn diagram

Only thing I didn’t want to tack on that because it bears worth of some more elaboration: Both of these two are horrible about recklessly arming their nemesis with tons of free information and striking opportunity that can only be used against them.

And Dib is worse at this, like, so… so much worse. Zim will do the classic ‘Muahahaha, now that I have you right where I want you, here’s a detailed presentation of my entire insidious plan, Batman!’ routine while at least having the class to wait until the hero is being lowered over the acid vat or tied to the train tracks. Dib, as a villain? Would start reciting that same speech while in the middle of trying to kidnap the hero, about 3 and a half steps way too early. It’s actually crazy how fast he will telegraph his next move even when he’s not in a position of having a real advantage yet.

The first time the two met and Dib stood there loudly showing himself as the most perceptive and hostile human in range? And then stood there explaining alien sleep cuffs and what he was going to do with them? And then stood there declaring war and that he’d identified Zim’s base location, swinging said cuffs around in front of the gnome brigade? Granted, he wasn’t aware of Zim’s security at the time, but the essence of that sequence was a pattern that he was more than happy to keep repeating for the next couple seasons.

Also, Zim’s brutalism, while it went to some shudder inducing places, is more expected from a genocidal maniac born from a race of colonial supremacists. It’s part of his theatrics and it’s fun for him in the same way it’s fun for his leaders to blow up innocent ice cream space-trucks and unlucky planets. Dib gets mean with their face offs in a way that’s just dripping with spite. All the time spite. Trivial, personal, petulant spite. Even more than Tak and her grudge, which, should be a lot more surprising to me. But it’s really not.

What it did do instead was remind me of a very interesting quote I once heard, from a Cracked video about online gaming behavior, of all places,

Oh did you know that the creator of SuperJail, Christy Karacas, was a director of that 2011 Cartoon Network show “Robotomy”?? It was shown in the credits of the show

I diiiiiiid not! But upon double checking the art style and general vibes it should have seemed most unsurprising. Still extremely neat to know! Didn’t catch much of that one when I was younger but you know what? I’ll have to slap it into the “to check out” roster now.

Absolutely taken back by this new monster they dropped for the ethereal workshop lately

Not so much because of the way he looks or sounds by himself, but by the sheer amount of FNAF references they crammed into his bio you’d never know without looking for yourself

“Hello, Hello? Hello?” - phone guy callback

“Behind the laughter” - literally one letter off from behind the slaughter

“Nitebear” - the species name potentially being a shortened mash of Nightmare Fredbear or just a punny rhyme with the word nightmare itself

“Mishmash of multiple ideas” - possible Ennard reference or the general theme of Ennard also seen a few times throughout the game series, as in The Mangle, Springtrap, or Nightmare Freddy

“Quirky animatronics” - The obvious.

“To avoid going Purple in the face” - William Afton.

“Servos [don’t] lock up” - a very intentional play on a verbatim quote from early on in the series

“Groans and moans” - Several FNAF animatronics have been known to emit groan-like sounds of suffering and general tortured ghost noises

“But it always comes back” - William Afton, again.

Oh yeah and the whole thing with it being a singing miserable animatronic beast on top of everything else.

The meaning of “Vindicate” because I found a pretty foul potential double entendre in this episode’s title

It’s a very fun word that dances nearby the feeling of “exonerate” and “avenge”, but it can ALSO mean something closer to “justify” or “substantiate” depending on the context.

The first chop of the episode and the title implies Dwicky to be this potential vindicator, and he was- but not in the sense that he’s validating Dib’s belief in the paranormal. He doesn’t need anyone to confirm he’s right about Zim or that he’s not delusional, he already knows that. But he has been accused of such by everyone who knows his name, so, maybe that’s the real meaning, right? That Dwicky was supposed to be his advocate and absolve him in the eyes of everyone else who treated him so poorly? I’m sure that’s what he was hoping for… but we know too well how that turned out.

Dwicky did prove something by the end of this episode though, so it’s a perfectly fitting description of the conclusion. What that entire series of events actually served toward was Dib’s mistrust and low expectations of other people. A disposition that you can say has been…

Vindicated!