Hello! So this is gonna be specific, but I had an idea for a human OC who grew up on Irk. (I kind of took the fact that a bunch of babies got abducted in Plague of Babies and ran with it, plus some timey wimey BS.) Could I get some relationship headcanons for a human that acts like an Irken, (aggressive and haughty,) but is actually a total softie? Like she comes to Earth and fucks all Zim's shit up at first cause 'Earth's mine now', then kind of figures his situation and is just like 'oh, hm'
This is really cute tho omg also I’m so sorry so much of this is setup I couldn’t help it and it got away from me so it’s just long oops
She definitely knows she’s different somehow but Irkens don’t care about appearances so she doesn’t either. She is perfectly happy looking wildly different, and will sing the Tallests’ praises until the universe collapses. She’s very proud.
I feel like the Tallests would have sent her to earth on purpose because she’ll know Zim’s an Irken but he’ll tear his antenna off trying to figure out how and why she acts like one but biologically isn’t. Like she’s just there to fuck with him and the Tallast think it’s funny.
Eventually Zim has to get Dib in on it because he’s going fucking nuts and Dib just tells him to ask her. Zim is legitimately way too afraid of her because she’s too good and wouldn’t just tell him. So Dib asks. And she lays out her life story and Zim fucking screams like ITS ON NOW HE KNOWS BITCH. Also he’s convinced she only told Dib because he was also human and clearly she’s lying about having any real loyalty to the Empire. Or something.
So they go through the whole “were enemies and I’m going to fight you just because” phase before eventually it comes out about how Zim got to Earth and then she kind of stops and realizes that he doesn’t know he’s in exile. He has no idea his entire race hates him. And watching him try and fight for their good name just... kills her on the inside. She’s still human and can still feel compassion, she just has to wrestle with it every now and then.
So she puts a full stop on the fighting, sits him down, and just lets him talk. “Tell me about your mission. Tell me about your other stations. What did you do before this? Did you enjoy it or this more?” He’s never had anyone give a shit before and she knows that because she grew up around a society that vocally didn’t give a shit. He was was mocked constantly, he was the biggest joke of the Empire. And he didn’t even know it. That wasn’t... right.
Rather than breaking the news to him, she asks him to show her what Earth is like, what does he see from his perspective? It doesn’t take long for her to figure out that he’s very obviously defective - which she won’t ask about - and that he responds better to gentle and honest questions. He only butts heads with Dib because Dib is constantly trying to justify a fight.
Zim really takes to her and is surprised at how well she’d been able to get along as a human in the Empire. He shows her around the city and they talk about the differences in infrastructure, social castes, and general populous attitudes. She lets him grab her hand and lead her emphatically in different directions, and tries not to get too distracted with how cute he is when he gets overly excited.
Dib doesn’t like that they spend so much time together, she’s human and should be spending time with other humans. But when she politely declines and Zim asks why she’s not more loyal to her own race she explains that it’s not about that, she just prefers his company.
Of course she should, Zim is amazing! But... somehow there’s an honesty there he’s never had to confront in anyone before, and it makes his spooch do weird flippy things. He ignores it for a while but eventually complains about it just for the sake of complaining and (now that’s she’s been on earth long enough to figure out what emotions are) she realizes to what extent he is defective. And now she’s kind of protective over his feelings because this poor boy just has no idea and he could and would be heartbroken if he ever figured it out.
They get along really well, she can match his eccentricism and he learns the value of chilling tf out. She learns to help him come to conclusions on his own rather than trying to just tell him things. He decides companionship is not the crutch he always assumed it was. They’re a good balance.
Zim tries not to ask so many questions about what Irk has been like since he last saw it, and she can tell he misses it very much. Slowly over time he grows more and more melancholy until eventually his facade of superiority no longer shields him from his own mind and he just... figures it all out on his own. And it hurts.
But she stays. She sits with him and talks him through it. She is perfectly aware of the societal norms of defective Irkens, and that she should be shunning him. But here her human nature is strongest and she’s able to give him comfort in a way Irkens would more openly accept. Once he’s through the worst she does her best to help him feel like he’s still Zim and that that’s never going to change. Even if the major things around him do.
She especially has a lot of fun and finding and exploring new hobbies for the both of them, and figuring out ways to mesh their cultural understandings of Irkens and humans. Zim likes anything he can makes with his hands, and absolutely goes bonkers for those 3D puzzles. She likes reading stories and learning about human history through the rhetoric of science fiction and the evolution of similar fictional genres. If they want to do something together they usually mesh both of those interests and end up playing out virtual reality scenarios and getting super dramatic about it. They acted out Hamilton but George Washington was an alien and everyone had lasers instead of muskets.
They’re just equally ridiculous and cute and expressive and this was fun thank you!!
