myyyyyyy least favorite thing that people did especially back when the florpus influx of fans came around is the soft babyification of everyone but also especially especially skoodge (i say as though i liked skoodge when florpus came out). even if there were people that miraculously recognized that zim wasnt a perfect sympathetic victim it was still somehow impossible for them to do the same thing for skoodge (whenever his existence was actually acknowledged)
and a lot of that is probably due to how silly he is and how limited his screentime is (and probably because of his fat. since people tend to be more inclined to label fat characters as "soft huggable babs." im not an expert on that particular subject though so disregard this)
but guys..,,, even with his limited time. he makes it verryyyy clear what hes all about.
one of his first spoken lines in battle of the planets are "so that no irken boot has to come into contact with any unsavory alien filth" when talking about literally laser-ing blorch's surface.
like. planetary extermination.
cmon. he could not have made his stance any more obvious.
if you want skoodge without xenophobia then you dont want skoodge. you want this
you want an invader zim with likeable characters who have no bad qualities? no problematic subjects?
here hold on im gonna make a thing no one besides me is gonna care about
skoodgeisms dependent on company:
skoodge with zim:
fully open and way too eager (genuinely has fun, silly business)
doesnt actually salute to zim, ive noticed. he respects him but i think that respect is the kind that puts them around the same level as each other. (doesnt mean skoodge Doesn't put zim on a figurative pedestal -- just that he sees him as more 'equal' than, say, the hobo sergeant or the tallest)
funny little guy with funny little words :3
(added the entire danceghost segment here because i love it dearly. look at him. panic boy ultimate. supreme.)
skoodge with irkens/irken-adjacent (squad sergeants/commanders/figures of authority):
quick to salute
fun words (hoo-ah) and out of place body/hand motions happen only when he gets in over his head/too excited.
feels a lot more plain and "conformed" (as though attempting to fit in?)
even with zim involved, skoodge is... kinda dramatic throughout hobo-13 in a way that he isnt in any of the unfinished episodes. like. serious-dramatic. trying too hard to be a stone-faced irken brute that he thinks everyone else thinks he should be.
(Yes sir! I am your loyal- [gets his ass punted and sent careening down a cliff])
... kinda like how he is with the tallest during battle of the planets!
(the dialogue is wrong in this transcript... anger >:( )
So Zim involvement does not override other-irken-company involvement, but it does override other-not-irken-company. so say, skoodge is with the other invaders on conventia during the assigning and zim walks up next to him -- he quickly and quietly backs away because that is a public space, and doing anything to imply that he might have somewhat of a cordial relationship with zim would put him on... hot burning coals. to put it lightly.
and when skoodge is with the hobos, he treats zim with respect, but that's because zim is the leader of the group -- skoodge is probably at least somewhat aware of the fact that the tallest (and others) are watching him right now. he is treating zim... a lot like a stranger. curt words and mostly not talking to him directly unless addressed or thinking his skillset might be useful to zim.
... at the end, though, you see some of his actual personality start to leak through!
(Zim -- I escaped from the canyon -- I made it! I'm aLiiive! [immediately gets crushed by the sergeant])
(seeking validation -- he didnt need to come all the way out here, to say that to zim, specifically. he was still doing the test for the tallest the same as zim was, yes, but youd think if anyone knew to keep their mouth shut around zim for the sake of their own luck/lives/whatever, it would be skoodge. and yet! he doesnt!)
im feeling like... the adrenaline high from running through the entirety of the hobo-13 course, with a hogulus still chasing after him, probably made him a little excitable and lose his cool composure.
anyways that was a tangent. uh.
when skoodge is with other company. he is. awkward. (see: ghost scientist scene). though this is undoubtedly because of the situation (undercover during a supposed mission) hes still noticeably different from how he behaves on hobo-13! i think maybe this is just because earth is foreign territory that hes yet to learn. still thinks of it as a hazardous filthy wasteland of a planet with threats he hasnt properly assessed.
i think... if he were with company, not irken, and without the looming threat of being discovered and dissected (earth, humans, blorch, rats) then he would still be plain and awkward, honestly? kinda like sizzy when he fails to match zim's energy ('i wasnt laughing?') lots of ums and awkward silences and coughs and flies buzzing and crickets chirping.
Gonna just start with the simple things. Things you can get from watching one time alone. Maybe. Probably not I don't think you people think about him enough to gather any of this. No. I'm sorry I love you all. I'm just a specific level of detached from average not-Skoodge viewers and don't know what all is expected. It's that one meme "Even when compensating, experts in any field will overestimate the average person's knowledge."
It's rough. Let's get into it.
Speech is probably an easy one! Yeah? Yeah.
A lot of the things he says are very literal... there's a lot of tacting things that are currently happening. A lot of stating the obvious.
Admittedly... this is probably a byproduct of him not being a "main character." His dialogue is a lot less important than that of characters like Zim and Dib. But it's still worth talking about! I'd like to think it's genuinely just his personality to be obvious and talk about things as if people aren't already aware of them. Maybe even have him be a bit tone-deaf. That's more headcanon territory though! So let's walk on past that before I confuse myself and all of you.
DOUBLE NEGATIVES...!
... only happen once. In the background. While he's being talked over by a bunch of teammates.
("Yeah; really that's actually good and more logical cause I don't really wanna make a chain or nothing like that.")
His speech is a lot more casual and, in transcripts for unfinished episode(s)(?) almost innocent!
frothing at the mouth at this one actually i dont like it. not good. this is just exposition. he would not fucking say that (probably wrong) (this was written by the shows writers) (it still makes me angry)
This one I just wanted to add because it's silly. Look at how silly he is. He's just a fun loving guy. Why does his mind go to dancing straight away? We'll never know... the inner machinations of his mind are an enigma.
Skoodge reads as... more impulsive than anything (and maybe a little anxiety-riddled but that might also just be me projecting). He doesn't strike me as a critical thinker who really tries to like... weigh the consequences of his actions. He just does shit and when it doesn't work out he does more. I imagine that's what most irkens are like, actually, now that I think about it...
His gut instinct must be controlling him because if it isn't then I honestly can't find any good explanation as to how he's survived for so long.
Which perfectly segways me into something a little more analyzing-like:
Skoodge is a cockroach.
He got shot out of a cannon and still comes back to the Empire. He... really does seem to believe that being here will help him out somehow. As if it hasn't already been proven that nothing he will do will satisfy the society he hails from.
Desperation can make you do desperate things; and Skoodge's entire character just reeks of desperation.
From apparently being considered to eat his own skin (before being deemed too much by the network) [no screenshot available because I don't even know how I'd begin to look for it] to the more canonical screaming-like-a-baby whenever something happens to him, it kinda makes you wonder how the hell he even got to where he is in the first place.
Now, this is more speculation than actual evidence, but I think it's a fair enough bet to say that Skoodge earned his title as an invader. He has no height to propel him forward in society, so whatever he did would've had to've involved sheer tenacity and an inclination for survival.
He is almost definitely, genuinely, afraid of death. And because of that, he just... doesn't die.
I know at an objective view, he doesn't die because it's funnier that way, and helps with jokes and gags, but like... c'mon. This is a deep analysis post. I'm allowed to get a little indulgent with it.
Treading into more theorization-territory here.
Irkens are raging Xenophobes.
And Zim fits this bill perfectly! He's slotted himself into this mindset without any issue, making up... unique slurs for humans and other things he comes by. Because he tries too hard to be a perfect irken. Maybe. That's a topic for someone that's insane about Zim, not me. This is about my guy.
If Zim is the perfect representation of an irken soldier (on a purely superficial level), then Skoodge is an outlier. Not in that he's good at his job; he's supposed to be! No, rather, his differences lie in his temperance. His composure, whatever you call it. He is far too complacent and even possibly a bit meek, if you wanna go ahead and call him that.
You see that? That right there is respect for a... honestly almost certainly, by irken standards, inferior species.
Now, this could either mean one of three things.
Either A) Skoodge is not space racist (best case scenario)
or B) Skoodge lacks self-confidence; not seeing himself as superior, and thus being compliant and respectful to the obvious figure of authority in front of him.
or C) Skoodge does not have respect for his Empire (very unlikely, seeing as the only reason he's still here is because he's trying to gain a promotion from said Empire)
Shooting down option A immediately with this dialogue here (Battle Of The Planets)
Sorry folks... he is very much so still space racist.
As for option B...
I'm going to be completely honest here. I think I've been interpreting this wrong in my series. I have a whole lot of complex reasons explaining why Skoodge doesn't have much confidence, but honestly, he reads as more... chill. And down-to-earth, than he does as self-loathing.
There is possibly evidence of him having a more quiet and subdued personality, instead of just him not being a xenophobe; and it comes from the very first episode!
Crying in front of the tallest at the Assigning. Admittedly, Larb cried too; but he at least had enough push in him to say something.
Skoodge doesn't. He's even disheartened by the Tallest's initial jeering of him! Which admittedly, might not be the best example of low self-esteem, because those are the literal Leaders of his fucking Empire... but it is definitely a shift from him being the proud, confident, short-and-ugly invader that he's shown to be in Battle Of The Planets. Invading Blorch must've really (rightfully) inflated his ego.
Which he normally lacks.
He lacks ego, but that doesn't mean he lacks confidence. He knows that he's good at things in spite of his flaws, and takes pride in it! Even though that pride ends up shooting him in his own foot. Sad.
And why is it that he lacks ego? Every other irken thus far (sans maybe Sizz-lorr) has demonstrated just how... important. It is for them to have one. How almost ingrained into their nature their egos are. Why does Skoodge not go on to boast about his glory when any other irken in his situation would? Again, it's going to be another one of those things that I just can't be too sure about, but I'm going to hazard to say that it's because he's so physically flawed. Short and ugly. (Probably the reason why his uniform is stained. Why put forth the effort to make your uniform look good if it's impossible for the rest of you?)
There is. Almost no doubt in my mind, that he's had to fight tooth and nail to get to where he is, claw his way to the top. And if he's done that, he knows the struggle of being lower? He knows because no matter how high he gets, he'll still always be that "lower"? augh. what the fuck.
Skoodge has been humbled by this because he's been reminded of it at almost every point in his life. He doesn't boast to inferiors because he knows that there is nothing to boast, that he is technically one of those inferiors. Because even despite his successes, someone will always go on to point out his flaws.
Which really brings attention to Battle Of The Planets, to the Tallest pointing out his flaws. He just had his greatest success. Purple gave him one flaw, he gave another. And he gave it proudly.
... SECRET FOURTH OPTION D YEAHHHH BABY!!!!
FAWN RESPONSE.
With his inclination towards survival it would make sense to reason that he's only polite in front of potentially-threatening company because it means that he's less likely to get pummeled for being. Anything else.
Being polite is just as credible a survival technique as anything else! We just don't get to see any other irkens using it.
Skoodge is. Competent. He conquered his planet first!
He's a good invader. And that's probably because he knows when to run.
He's very vocal about it, if he knows (or thinks) that there's someone around to assist him. Silent with his impending doom (ha) at the Assigning, but very very loud when being chased down in the canyon by the hogulus in Hobo 13.
Now, I don't know about you, but irkens don't really strike me as the kind of species to back down from anything. To me, they read as more of a "do it or die" kinda group. Again, this whole trait kiiiinda almost begging to be pegged as outlier. The only thing that makes me on the fence about this one is, again, the fact that it's a cartoon and Skoodge's fear might be for the sake of gags.
That doesn't really explain this though. He has literally no reason to be scared here. In this specific scenario (Day Of Da Spookies! unfinished episode) he's disguised as a human. Every person there is none the wiser to him and his alien nature. He's just... like this...? All the time? Apparently? Maybe?
Or maybe! There's other things at play here!
Skoodge is competent...
... but.
A friend put it into better words than I could:
His brain turns to mush whenever he's around Zim.
(Honestly, the volunteer line might actually add on to his possible lack of self-respect? Hard to say if it's that, or if he's just that desperate to give respect at the sign of any spare bit of authority, even if that authority comes from an irken shorter than him.)
It makes me wonder if most of what we've seen of him is just Zim's influence on him. Scared at the Assigning? He didn't know Zim was there, so that had to have been genuine. Saluting to an inferior species? He had to have known that Zim was there, because Zim introduced himself first (and very loudly at that), but I think it was also genuine because Zim wasn't directly influencing him?
Screaming because of the hogulus and running like a child from some humans? Those are almost definitely Zim's doing. I just. Don't know How.
Screaming is a weakness, I think; at least it should be (in the eyes of irkens), and when Skoodge does it he does it because he seems convinced that Zim will help him. And yet Zim never does! Skoodge has no reason to believe this!
But still, believe he does.
They had to have been... kind of close? At one point in their lives.
Potentially. I don't know how close a person can get to Zim, but Skoodge has just barely managed to do it, by virtue of the fact that he is quite possibly the only living thing in the universe that can tolerate being around Zim for more than five seconds.
And his cockroach-itude. That definitely helps. You can't be killed by Zim's passive destructive radius if you genuinely just can't fucking die at all.
But that explains nothing of his weird eagerness to do things for Zim. It borders on obsessive. It might actually be obsessive, since he's apparently been living in Zim's vents ever since the events of Hobo 13. Without telling him.
Skoodge is fucking deranged. Skoodge doesn't even register as a blip on Zim's radar of people-to-acknowledge, but he will still always just do things for him, and be excited to, too!
I don't know what's wrong with him. The less easy and definitely one too many steps detached from canon explanation would be that he views Zim as the ideal irken and strives to be like him. The easiest explanation would be that he just really likes Zim.
Gosh. Even that still raises the question of how or why he would. Zim is fucking terrible to not just him, but everyone. He is unbiased in whose life he ruins.
And Skoodge is perfectly content with just letting Zim ruin his.
do you have any headcanons (or canons lol) of Skoodge’s speech patterns n things he says a lot?? i would like to maybe write skoodge things eventually maybe one day possibly
HELLO? yes i do come closer
PART ONE: idk why im using parts i'm not gonna follow this theme at all for the rest of my post STRONG TIES TO ZIM
Even without my rotted brain he very clearly has some canon connections to Zim, if not in the show (hobo-13) then in the cut episodes (the trial, day of da spookies). Knowing this, it would make a lot of sense for some of Zim's mannerisms to carry over! Nothing big, Skoodge isn't gonna start talking in third person or anything any time soon -- but he does tend to use a lot of interjections and the occasional "EH?"
And he speaks casually! Words blend and meld together. He hardly uses harsh vowels or enunciates unless he wants to make a point (that point usually being followed by a salute). "Gonna, y'know, yeah," and a lot of mumbles and "uh huh"s. Lots of double negatives, too. Like, not enough to be TOO too noticeable, but enough to where you know it's there.
He doesn't like being loud usually unless he's feeling confident or excited. And when he is excited, he uses a lot of interjections, and exaggerates his words. "Hoo-ah" and "too-night" being a couple of canon examples, "woo-hoo, yippee, yay-yuh, bingo" being some non.
(not a speech headcanon, but, i do think these are almost always followed by some weird body motion. pumping hands, throwing arms in the air, that sort of thing)
And I kinda have this silly idea in my head that he uses stupid words like "yeowzers, holy moly, heeby jeebies" without there being any canon evidence of it. And he sometimes adds sound effects to things that don't really need them (people walking, driving, eating, et cetera).
Thank you for letting me be insane about him :) lets go out for dinner or something AFEWEGWRG
