Getting Around Finally To My Rewatch Of Tak: The Hideous New Girl, And Somethings Snagged A Wrinkle In

Getting around finally to my rewatch of Tak: The Hideous New Girl, and something’s snagged a wrinkle in my head.

When I was younger, I really could not understand what was up with the first half or so of Tak’s introduction, and I honestly chalked up that entire “dating” montage between her and Zim as filler to pad a few laughs and minutes over until the big reveal. Like, she already had about all of the preparations together that she needed to get started on her revenge planet-stuffing plot.

She’d even been on Earth for a good while already, setting up and maintaining that weenie stand front, gathering resources, investing in a solid disguise, etc. if all she needed to do left was get Zim out of the way, and she had managed to track him down… I didn’t see the sense it made in her going the extra mile to enroll in the Skool rather than confront him at his base directly. I especially did not see the sense in her stalling her big master plan in order or read poetry or blow off an entire day humoring his deluded assumptions.

Well, I literally just realized- She had never actually met Zim face to face before the events of this episode. And the guy himself is probably something of a terrifying legend to the rest of his kind, for the context of his mission and banishment. This is the pipsqueak who single handedly ruined Operation Impending Doom I’s take off and recklessly massacred the previous batch of elite Invaders in the process. Said pipsqueak was also capable of knocking half the entire power grid of a planet out over some fun dip, had the balls to reject his own banishment, and still successfully convinced the Tallest somehow to return his job title.

Tak would obviously be aware of every bit of this. That’s why she went to the Skool first, and not alone straight into the lair of the most destructive and unpredictable Irken to currently exist. She was sizing up her opponent on neutral grounds, where neither of them would be able to break into an all-out, cover blowing fight yet.

The poem she read was as thinly veiled a threat/challenge as she could pass off in front of humans, but Zim was still supposed to get the intended message… if only he did not miss the painfully obvious reference to the Armada’s logo she made a part of her disguise.

And the next immediate thing she’s caught doing after pelting Zim with a set of bbq ribs?

I can vividly imagine how easy the lead up to that conversation probably was, too. Dib’s desperately liable to spill everything to the first soul that seems remotely interested in a single word he has to say when it comes to Zim. So, between that and Zim reacting to her first blow so obliviously, she already learned everything she needed to know- mostly, what an absolute fucking joke her potential rival turned out to be. From there really, it looks like it turned into a game of screwing around with him while she still had time to kill- maybe just out of amused curiosity to see how long Zim would try to keep the valentines antics up, maybe just for the sick kicks of inflicting more petty cruelty on him,

Maybe a little mix of both, actually.

I think society started to collapse about the time when we stopped having inexplicably creepy kid's cartoons. Can you think of a single good thing that's happened in the English-speaking world since the Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack ended

Does… does this make Clay the red one in that case?

danielle stopframe is the yellow m&m

Oh? We’re having this take share? This is going to be the conversation? *cracks some fingers*

cause I’m a goofy goober with some ideas

Bentley

Sly

Murray

Carmelita

Dimitri

I don’t know why but I like to imagine that if Carmelita gets really mad or determined to catch a person she just starts running on all fours to go faster

Oh she would 100% do that. New headcanon: at full speed she chases criminals like Miguel O'Hara

These two anti-tourism bits occupy neighboring apartment rooms in my head (rent free of course)

Don’t forget this was also the same gal who, after botching Lemongrab as hard as she did, decided to mess around with creating an immortal, superintelligent Sphinx that was much more dangerous, wasn’t anymore involved with its socialization/education than she was with the lemon boi, and then was somehow shocked when it went about exactly the way it did.

Princess Bubblegum really looked at Lemonhope and said "I can fix him" like girl didn't you learn anything from Lemongrab