And Its NOT Even An Obsession With Aliens Specifically Its An Obsession With The Unknown And Yet To Be

And it’s NOT even an obsession with aliens specifically… it’s an obsession with the unknown and yet to be explored. Absent of Zim forcing his attention and top priority towards the perpetual invasion, he doesn’t really have a particular worm for extraterrestrials burrowing through his head. He’s jumping at any cryptic lead that enters his field of view in his spare time. He’s scrutinizing for potential yetis/bigfeets, he’s raising the dead, and he’s probably going around poking vampiric beehives and god only knows what other antics a 12 year old with that kind of plot armor can get around to. He’s just as enthusiastic and curious to “figure out” arcane spells and futuristic unearthly tech alike. In a simulation of all his dreams come true he segwayed right through his false victory over Zim and onto the next hunt for ghosts, and then the likes of Nessie’s kin.

Of course space would be absolutely wondrous to him. It’s one of the last true frontiers standing before mankind, and what is left to be learned about it completely dwarfs, no, transcends the comparative speck of work we’ve accomplished so far. I’d make a fair wager that he feels the same about the oceans and the worlds beneath worlds, and in between.

The juxtaposition between his life’s passion and Professor Membrane’s is so ironic it actually almost hurts.

And I’ve seen it that way for a very long time, because invader Zim is a crazyass world full of crazyass things that are real as a heart attack. This isn’t real life where people actually are likely in need of urgent medical treatment if they spend several years screaming about a school classmate being an interloper from the stars or a Sasquatch using their power tools. Dib actually does know what he’s talking about to at least a point further than many other believers and investigators within the show. Nothing about his problem with dad is “science vs pseudoscience” like it would be if they existed in a grounded and consistent universe.

To Dib, this is ALL correctly perceived as just more science. Supernatural would honestly be a misnomer for his special interest if you think about it. How can something be above nature, and also occur naturally? Magic and monsters are parts of the same world, and the fact that they break the known rules only means to Dib that there’s more complexity to the rules he needs to keep learning. He’s not even “bad” at the conventional research his father expects of him, he’s a prodigy study to the point that it bores him to tears.

Because why would he want to keep himself restrained to things already tried and known when there’s so much more out there? He doesn’t want the maximum potential of his achievements to be dragging his feet down a path paved to him by those before, least of all probably his father.

You wanna hear a hot take about where his disagreement with the professor actually stems from??

Dib Membrane is the most scientifically-minded character in Invader Zim.

Literally no one else so consistently represents that inquirious faucet of the human condition. For better or worse Dib has to be scratching an itch to keep turning over every odd stone off the beaten road and to pursue that which he doesn’t understand- All for no other ultimate reason than to know, record, and tell. Contrast that with the most renowned scientist of the human race: a man of authoritative knowledge and very little compromise with the unknowns, as in the TRUE unknowns. I’m not saying Professor membrane doesn’t have intellectual curiosity, far from it, but it’s not actually the main driver behind his research. And that is neither an insult to his work because his main priority is actually extremely utilitarian and helpful to society. The world literally needs a man like him to function, and his entire character represents what most laymen think an ideal “scientist” is, a super smarts guy who knows everything and builds the world we live in. In his position, it’s probably very hard not to develop some arrogance regarding what he thinks he’s learned about the universe.

Dib’s hobby is where you really watch the curiosity in Membrane comes to blows with the stereotype he was made in the image of. Earlier on you believe the problem is that he’s just an evidence based rationalist who needed proof of Dib’s claims.

Except we have seen this hope completely shattered from about the Florpus movie and onward. Professor membrane is smart, but he is not inherently that much more rational than most humans. There is the established science, and there are unquestionable, concrete rules about the universe he just cannot compromise on because he has not considered their exceptions possible. He roughly said it himself once that aliens probably do exist, but not the technology that could bring them face to face with him. that’s the exact premise in his head that stopped him from engaging with the Irken Spittlerunner sitting in his garage. Based on the laws he spent his entire life utilizing in his work, it shouldn’t exist. It can’t exist. But his son is a very imaginative and crafty kid. Him building something like that as a cry for attention is possible under the known laws of reality, so there’s the working conclusion for the spaceship. All of membrane’s denial throughout the movie becomes a lot less absurd and a lot more predictable when you realize this is just how his internal logic tree works. A bug-eyed alien using a tiny purple moose to spaghettify the entire planet through a multi-dimensional portal??? NOT👏SCIENTIFICALLY👏POSSIBLE. That’s an absolutely ludicrous proposal!

Some kind of hallucinogenic psychosis? Well, that’s happened to people before, the human mind is a very flawed machine, after all. What are you gonna do, right? Bet it’s just a remarkably vivid dream. And that’s a bummer because it really raises the bar and the possible futility of what Dib is trying to accomplish. Even if he switched gears off of the alien thing and made a breakthrough somewhere else, it is always going to be the same struggle with his father, because what Dib loves to study is exclusively things that make everything we know about the world no longer make sense- Things that elude traditional means of research and things that require a humility that his society has long abandoned to be known. Things that you will never see if you don’t have the modesty to accept that you haven’t reached the end of history and exploration. Professor Membrane is without reservation, a brilliant mind, and a force of ultimate good in the world. He’s the colloquial understanding of science, the cemented, the accepted, the undefeatable, and the merciless enemy to blind faith.

And yet, Dib Membrane better represents the actual history and theory of the scientific pursuit- one that was fueled by curiosity and awe at the world, one that has persisted despite all sabotage and violence that tried to hold it back, one that never grew complacent, one that made power upset countless times over, one that had to constantly adapt, and one that doesn’t dismiss or flee its challengers because it sprints headfirst into them.

TL/DR: I eternally fucking love the characterization in this series; Taking my hat off in sorrow for Dib because so much of the family rift here is that the professor has raised a superior successor to Membrane Labs, even if he’s stubbornly coping too hard to appreciate that now.

You know, the movie doesn’t explicitly draw attention to it, but I just love Dib’s wonder-filled big-eyed look when Zim pulls out his star map hologram. 

It connects very well with the movie’s opening

And even as far back as the ending of ‘Tak, the Hideous New Girl’

That Dib’s obsession with aliens is, fundamentally, born of a true sense of excitement and wonder of the mysteries of outer space. 

so im being horny and wayching porn and i burst out laughing because the top came and he literally sounds like someone chopped off his finger or some shit it's so fucking extra and i wish i could post it but i can't but its so fucking funny

This is just the alternate timeline where Blorch is the dominant empire instead of Irk

r… rat movie au…

The funny thing about Zim taking over Tak’s Ship in ‘Dibship Rising’ is that he does so by activating some sort of protocol that makes it obey the Irken Empire

And the thing is that Zim is not the ‘Irken Empire’. He’s an exile from the Empire with delusions of grandeur, and Tak knows this

And therefore Tak’s Ship knows it. 

But Dib is, like, the one person in the universe who sees Zim as a legitimate arm of the Irken Empire, and now he uploaded his mind into the Ship.

And that’s the only reason Zim was able to take it over. 

compilation of moments i like in this episode. mostly them talking in a quiet voice bc I think its neat