A/N: Surprise, everyone. Been a while since I did an entry here, hasn't it? Didn't really have any ideas for anything short enough to cram into this collection before now. But then I saw Enter the Florpus, and had this random idea to take a look at some of the characters' thoughts after the events of the movie. There won't be much here, just some random thoughts I had presented through the POV of the relevant characters. Hope you all enjoy.

SPOILER WARNING: Obviously, there will be some pretty major spoilers for Enter the Florpus. If you haven't seen it yet, don't read this. Though on that note, if you haven't seen it yet, why are you wasting time on FFN? Go to Netflix and watch it now!

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing about Invader Zim. It all belongs to Jhonen Vasquez, Nickelodeon, Oni Press, and I guess Netflix now too.

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Scrap #7: Post-Florpus Thoughts

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Zim

As Zim watched the Computer repair the hole in his roof from where that pug had broken through after falling from orbit (and the other hole from when GIR had shot the stupid thing back into space), he reflected on the past week, which had been interesting even by his incredible standards. Successfully tricking Dib into becoming a sad, disgusting chair-blob, embarrassing himself in front of the Tallest by forgetting Phase 2 of his plan, falling into despair upon seeing that the Armada wasn't coming (and the Tallest really needed to have words with whoever was responsible for that navigation mistake), and then being inspired for his greatest plan ever, actually seeing it almost completely succeed before Dib and his stupid family ruined it, destroying poor Lawrence and the other robots in the process.

But Zim got the last laugh, didn't he? He'd always have the memory of Dib realizing he'd inadvertently inspired Zim's grand plan, and Dib was now stuck with that stupid pudding clone of his parental unit, so ha! Oh, and he'd also stolen that porcelain puppy clown doll thing from Dib's house, so that was a bonus. That made up a little for what had happened to Lawrence and the others.

Not that the Tallest needed to know that the doll wasn't his goal all along. He wouldn't want them thinking he was some kind of failure, after all. And fortunately, they'd certainly seemed pleased, judging by all that yelling they were doing during that funny puppet show they were putting on when he'd called. Heh, they sure did love their puppets; he still remembered that time they even used giant puppets of themselves, back during the whole Tak situation.

The fire had been an interesting new touch, though.

Anyway, he supposed as he tossed the dog doll aside (let GIR eat it, for all he cared), he supposed he'd earned himself a little break. The pitiful humans would still be rebuilding after the damage caused by that Florp Hole or whatever it was called, and it was no fun destroying something that was already destroyed, so he might as well give them time to build everything back up so he could knock it down again later. And as that had been his most epic plan ever, he'd need time to recharge his brilliant brain-meats before coming up with something even more amazing to destroy Dib and conquer Earth with.

In the meantime, he was staying in the lower levels, where the pug would be unable to hit him if it fell through the ceiling again.

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Dib

Watching the city's reconstruction efforts from the damage caused by the Florpus was oddly therapeutic, Dib thought as he sat perched atop his roof, looking on as debris was swept away and buildings pieced back together.

A part of him wanted nothing more than to run down and start yelling at people how they needed to now accept that everything he'd been saying for years was true. Another part of him, one that he'd started listening to more often lately, acknowledged that that was just his ego talking, which was more interested in getting people to heap praise on him for his accomplishments rather than in the good he was trying to accomplish in the first place. Which, he'd realized with a significant level of discomfort, made him extremely similar to Zim.

Besides which, he could tell it'd be a total waste of time. Just by checking the news, he knew that the general population was going with the explanation that everything that had happened — the Earth being moved through space, the appearance of the Irken Armada, the alternate realities inside the Florpus — had all been a mass hallucination created by a malfunction in the Membracelets. Dib couldn't begin to understand how that explanation made any kind of logical sense, especially in light of all the physical damage left behind, yet at the same time he wasn't too surprised by it, given the average person's ability to ignore or rationalize anything strange and unusual. For them, it was easier to believe that experimental technology had gone wrong rather than admit that aliens were real.

Ah well, let people believe that if they wanted. The world was safe, and that was what mattered. And if people's only reaction to that was going to be a few lawsuits against Membrane Labs for all the damage, so be it. Dad had access to the best lawyers money could buy, after all, and he had more important things to focus on. And maybe that was the thing that was really making him happy as he sat there — the fact that he really did have something good come out of this mess other than beating Zim.

For so long, Dib had wanted to prove that the paranormal was real (which these days meant proving Zim was an alien) so that he could finally get some respect and appreciation. And while getting that in general would be nice, where he really wanted that from was his family, who were always so emotionally distant from and dismissive of him. Well, now he finally had that — sure, Gaz had only admitted she cared in her tough, roundabout way, and it was annoying that Dad still thought everything with Zim and the Florpus was a hallucination, but still. He had a family that did love and support him, even if they weren't the best at showing it, and for once Dib had a home life he couldn't complain about.

…Er, except for Clembrane. Seriously, he could do without having a pudding-obsessed clone that looked like his dad crossed with some kind of exotic fish hanging around. If nothing else, he knew Foodio 3000 would be a lot happier without having pudding added to every meal.

But hey, his sister had admitted she didn't hate him, and his father had made it clear he was proud of him. If being stuck with Clembrane was the price of that, he could live with it.

And if everyone else was going to continue to ignore Zim's threat even after all this… well, how was that different from normal? At least now he knew his family would have his back, which gave him all the inventive he needed to keep going, no matter what.

He just needed to avoid fusing with any more chairs in the process.

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Professor Membrane

It was hard for a genius to admit when he was wrong. Probably because it was something that so rarely happened, being the most intelligent human being alive and all. But, this was one of those rare times that Professor Membrane did have to say that he'd made huge mistakes when it came to his son.

Oh, not about dismissing his love of all that alien nonsense. That was all a waste of time, no matter how many intense, concussion-induced hallucinations he had about the subject. No, he simply regretted just how harsh he'd apparently come across as in the process of trying to get Dib off that foolish path.

The thought that his own son believed that he didn't care about him broke Membrane's heart. All he'd ever wanted was for Dib to apply the superior intellect he'd inherited in a proactive way; real science was the only way to change the world for the betterment of all mankind, not studying imaginary monsters like aliens or Bigfoot or vampire bees or ghost werewolf Frankensteins or whatever else they were discussing on those ridiculous websites. Not to mention that that sort of nonsense was just going to lead to ridicule and mockery, and was probably why Dib didn't have any friends.

That being said, perhaps he shouldn't have been so dismissive of Dib's beliefs? Looking back, the Professor realized it might have been a better course of action to feign support of Dib's beliefs, and from there slowly wean him off of them. Maybe even employ some reverse psychology to help him realize how silly that paranormal stuff was. Instead, he'd just bluntly cast aside everything his son believed in, in such a way that it made it seem like he was casting him aside as well, which was the last thing he had intended.

The worst part was that it had taken a bizarre hallucination of fighting robots for control of a tiny purple moose in order to save the Earth from total destruction for him to realize where he'd gone wrong. How could a genius such as himself have failed to see how he was psychologically harming his eldest child?

Well, that was all done now. While he may never approve of Dib wasting his time on all this paranormal stuff, he was not going to continue making him feel ashamed of it. Let him study all that stuff now, and with any luck by the time he got to college, or even high school, he'd have gotten it out of his system and moved on to real science. And when that time came, Membrane would be sure to not gloat about it.

In the meantime, he had more important things to focus on. Like how the Membracelets had malfunctioned in such a way as to make the whole world share his hallucination. Or where that bizarre clone of himself had come from, and what to do with it.

Actually, maybe he'd just focus on that one. Foodio 3000 might revolt Terminator-style if they all had to put up with pudding at every meal for much longer.

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Comms Officer

He should have just turned the damn ship, he knew. Communications officer or note, he was primarily a navigator, and that meant that it was his responsibility to maintain the safe travel of the Massive while it was flying. Which in this case meant he should have changed course to avoid the Florpus Hole, but no, the Tallest had insisted on staying on a straight line, no matter the result.

And what was the deal with that, anyway? Tallest Purple, he could understand being that lazy and stupid, but Tallest Red was supposed to be the smart one! If it had just been about blowing up Earth to finally get rid of Zim, that was understandable, yet even after the Earth disappeared he hadn't listened to reason, instead just sitting back as the Armada flew to its doom.

Of course, he did have to admit that at least some of this was his own fault. As said, he had the responsibility of piloting the Massive, and he'd actually recognized the threat for what it was, so he should have done something about it. Why the hell hadn't he?!

…No, wait, he knew perfectly well why. If he'd changed the ship's course without the Tallest's permission, especially when they'd given orders to the exact opposite, he wouldn't have had to worry about getting sucked into the Florpus, they would have thrown him out an airlock. And if there was anything an Irken valued more than snacks or their loyalty to the Empire, it was their own life, so he'd decided to take his chances with the horrible reality-bending of the Florpus over the certainty of being tossed into the void.

So it was that he now found himself here, in a dimension where he and everyone else in the Armada had been transformed into a living puppet, and everything was perpetually on fire. Though, he had to admit that it was kind of funny to see that in the case of the Tallest, considering their love of puppets. Almost made being a puppet himself and constantly burning worth it.

Not entirely, of course. The fire was very painful.

But in any case, if this was going to be how he spent the rest of eternity, he wasn't going to sugarcoat it. He'd lacked the spine to defy orders when he should have, sure, but that didn't absolve the Tallest of their stupidity. Or Zim, for that matter, since he was the ultimate cause of all this, as he was with most of the Empire's other problems. And if the Tallest had wanted to blow him up to finally get rid of him, why couldn't they have done that years ago and saved everyone a ton of trouble!

Ah well, no point crying over it now, when it wouldn't change anything. All he could do was just sit and wait, and hope something happened to get them out of the Florpus. Then… well, he still wouldn't dare call out the Tallest to their faces, but he'd definitely still be thinking it!

In the meantime, he'd just sit here, cross his puppet arms, and try to ignore all the fire.

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A/N: And there's that. Admittedly, I could have done more characters, but I just couldn't get into Gaz or the Tallest's heads, no one sane could get into GIR's, and something from Clembrane's POV would probably just be a treatise on pudding. So, I just went with Zim and Dib, since they're the core characters, Membrane because of what a key role he played in the plot, and the Comms Officer because he's quite frankly my favorite new character, for being the only sane person on the Massive.

Well, that's all for now. Please review!