Fanfic / The Tenn Duology

The Tenn Duology is a pair of Invader Zim fanfics by Galactic Rainbow on Archive of Our Own, focusing on the minor character of Invader Tenn as she carries out her mission to infiltrate planet Meekrob, and the events that follow from there. Both stories are now complete.

The first story, The Tragedy of Invader Tenn, depicts Tenn being dispatched on her mission and follows her as she carries it out, even as she slowly begins to question her place in life. The second story, The Rise of Tallest Tenn, is an Alternate Continuity from the end of the first story, showing what happens as a consequence of Tenn choosing not to conquer Meekrob.

---

Trope examples applicable across both stories

• Ascended Extra:
  • Canonically, Tenn only had a couple of speaking scenes in one episode and background appearances in a few others. Here, as indicated by the series title, she's the main character.
  • The Resisty only showed up in one episode of canon, but become central characters in Rise.
  • Similarly Tak, who despite her immense popularity only has one in-person appearance in canon (the rest being vocal cameos via her ship's AI), but becomes the main antagonist of Rise.
• Best Friend: Sigma becomes Tenn's first and closest friend.
• Elsewhere Fic: By focusing on Tenn, and later the Resisty, these stories effectively take place side-by-side with Zim's exploits on Earth, occasionally crossing over but mostly being independent of each other.
• Genki Girl:
  • Sigma, except for extreme circumstances, is always happy and highly energetic.
  • Tenn turns into this over having her own Megadoomer, becoming highly excited about using it, to the point of uncharacteristically bad decision making.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": The Comms Officer aboard the Massive is actually named Comms.
• Hive Mind: Not quite, but Irkens do have a collective memory database managed by the Control Brains that they can access via their PAKs, which are added to it at the end of their lives.
• Only Sane Man: Comms is the only Irken on the Massive (Tallest included) who is presented as having any competency.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Generally averted, as opposed to canon. Unlike Zim and his wig/contact combo, any other Irkens using disguises in this series use either holograms or fake skins that perfectly mimic the species they're infiltrating.
• Point of Divergence: The divergence between the ending of Tragedy and the start of Rise is based around Tenn's decision whether or not to fulfill her mission to conquer Meekrob.
• Shock and Awe: Being made of living energy, the Meekrob are capable of discharging large amounts of electricity as attacks.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: As the Meekrob are Energy Beings, they're able to change their physical appearance on a whim. Sigma does this frequently throughout the series, both as disguises and for convenience.
• Worldbuilding: These stories heavily expand on how the Irken Empire operates, and its culture as a whole.

Trope examples from individual stories

The Tragedy of Invader Tenn

• Air-Vent Passageway: Sigma does this to break into the facility where Tenn is held captive.
• Becoming the Mask: Over the course of her mission, Tenn starts to identify with the Meekrob, especially with Sigma, whom she initially only befriends as part of her cover but comes to genuinely care about.
• Big "NO!":
  • Thermos gives one as part of Tenn's Probing Day puppet show demonstration of how she'll conquer Meekrob, as he’s acting out how Sigma would react to the planet's destruction.
  • Tenn's reaction to Thermos being devoured by the malfunctioning SIR units. She later gives a series of these when the Tallest declare her defective and decide to shoot her out an orbital cannon.
  • Sigma gives one when Tenn feeds her to the malfunctioning SIR units.
• Big "WHAT?!": Tallest Red's reaction to finding out that Tenn hasn’t self-destructed despite the failure of her mission.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Tenn is subjugated first to being electrocuted, and then to having her abdomen carved up by laser when the Meekrob capture and interrogate her.
• Death World: Meekrob is a wasteland outside of its few cities, having been drained of life by the invasive sand worms that still stalk the deserts they reduced everything else to.
• Devoured by the Horde:
  • Thermos ends up overwhelmed and consumed by the malfunctioning SIR units when they overrun Tenn's base.
  • Tenn ultimately feeds Sigma to the SIRs as well at the story's climax.
• Downer Ending: As to be expected from a story with "Tragedy" in its title. Tenn chooses to conquer Meekrob, betraying and killing her only friend in the process, only for the Tallest to kill her anyway for having let herself be captured first. The only upside to come out of this is that Tenn inadvertently causes the Tallest brain damage in the process of being dragged away, leading to their deaths in the Florpus and thereby granting her some posthumous revenge.
• Dying Curse: Discussed. As Tenn is dragged to the orbital cannon to be shot to her death in Meekrob's atmosphere, she spits out that she hopes the Tallest fly into a black hole and die. When the Massive flies into the Florpus a year later, Comms can't help but wonder if she willed it to happen.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Sigma is heartbroken when Tenn betrays her and conquers Meekrob.
• Fish out of Water: Tenn is better at blending in on Meekrob than Zim is on Earth, but still struggles with things like friendship and acting like a normal child, since they're so different from Irken society's strictly brutalist format.
• Heroic BSoD: Tenn is left practically catatonic in shock after the malfunctioning SIR units destroy her base. Which unfortunately leaves her vulnerable to being captured by the Meekrob.
• Kick the Dog: Spocke mocks Tenn when she's held captive by suggesting that she's not well-trained and was sent to Meekrob as a patsy.
• Miles Gloriosus: Heist, the chief Meekrob officer in charge of interrogating the captive Tenn likes to puff himself up and act tough and intimidating, but it's clear he's a buffoon. His underling Spocke, by contrast, is much more competent and threatening.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Thermos makes it clear that his only loyalty is to Tenn, not to any higher authority, even if she were to turn out to be defective.
• Oh, Crap!: Sigma's reaction when she and Tenn are attacked by sand worms. Tenn joins her in panicking when she realizes the worms can fly, and thus chase them through the air.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The Meekrob school teacher Ms. Sunny is normally bright and cheerful, but her mood noticeably darkens when she lectures about the Irkens.
• Redemption Rejection: Tenn ultimately chooses to ignore her Heel Realization and commit to her mission to conquer Meekrob.
• Robot Buddy: Thermos, Tenn's SIR Unit and loyal companion. His death at the hands of the other SIRs is the main cause of her above-mentioned Heroic BSoD.
• Sand Worm: Meekrob has these living in the deserts outside the planet's cities, although they’re not native — they’re an invasive species that arrived via meteor and quickly took over, driving the Meekrob into sheltering inside the cities. An interesting example, in that they can also fly, thanks to wings on their backs.
• Say My Name:
  • Tenn screams Thermos' name when he's grabbed and devoured by the rampaging SIR units.
  • Sigma calls out to Tenn when confronting her as she decides to conquer Meekrob after all.
• The Short War: Thanks to Tenn's sabotage of the planet's power grid, the Irken Armada's conquest of Meekrob takes a total of 17 minutes.
• Taking You with Me: Subverted. Tenn tries to trigger her self-destruct when the Tallest order her shot out of a cannon in order to take them with her, but is restrained before she can.
• Time Skip: The final scene of the story jumps a year from Tenn's execution to the ending of Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus.
• Torture Technician: Spocke serves this role when interrogating Tenn.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Tenn has a lot of trouble adjusting to feeling things like compassion and friendship, considering how long the Irkens have been repressing emotions.
• Would Hurt a Child: Tenn ultimately kills Sigma to fully cement her loyalty to the Empire.
• You Have Failed Me: Despite Tenn successfully conquering Meekrob, the Tallest decide that as a defective, she's a disgrace to the Empire and deserving of execution.

The Rise of Tallest Tenn

• Adaptation Expansion: The core Resisty members are all given backstories, which never appeared in canon.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: According to Tenn, the tradition of the newly-initiated Tallest cutting off their thumbs started because a past Tallest drunkly cut his off to prove he could rule without them.
• Altar Diplomacy: At the end of the story, Tenn and Lard Nar use this as an excuse for them to get married after she becomes Tallest, officially using it as a means of solidifying the reforged Irken-Vortian Alliance.
• And the Adventure Continues: The end of Zim's plot in the story is being sent to infiltrate the Planet Jackers, with the narration stating he ends up in a similar situation to what he had on Earth.
• Arch-Enemy: Tak becomes this to Tenn and Sigma, due to conquering Meekrob. They eventually let this go once Tak and Tenn become co-Tallest, with Tak yielding to Tenn as the superior of the two.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: When there are multiple Tallest at the same time, they may engage in a ritual duel called the Sevato Scourge to determine which one is viewed as dominant over the other, and therefore the de facto sole leader of the Irken Empire. Tenn and Tak engage in one when they're found to be the joint tallest Irkens left after Red and Purple are lost in the Florpus, and Tenn's refusal to die even when mortally wounded scares Tak right out of the ring, causing her to yield by default.
• Berserk Button: Tak is one to Sigma, who goes into an Unstoppable Rage at the sight of her due to her role in Meekrob's conquest.
• Best Friend: Lard Nar and Ald Noah are this to each other.
• Bread and Circuses: Tenn specifically name-drops this trope as a means by which the Irkens keep conquered races content, with dedicated planets like Foodcourtia and Arcadikon providing limitless food and entertainment.
• Chekhov's Gun: Early in the story, while looking for a place to live and hide from the Irkens, Tenn and Sigma stumble on a binary black hole system. At the story's climax, this is where they plan to teleport the Massive (only for it to fly into the Florpus instead), and where they do send the Infinite Energy Absorbing Blob, where it's torn apart by the gravity.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Ixane is the most hostile member of the Resisty towards Tenn, and takes the longest to warm up to her, but eventually Tenn earns enough respect for them to at least be cordial with each other.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: As opposed to the first story, this one ultimately ends up this way. After all of the Resisty's struggle, they defeat Red and Purple, allowing Tenn to take over as Tallest and stop the Empire’s conquests, restoring peaceful coexistence with the rest of the universe, while Tak is her subordinate co-Tallest and learning to be a better person. And on a personal level, there's Tenn and Lard Nar ending up Happily Married, with Sigma as their surrogate daughter and her actual mother revealed to still be alive.
• Faking the Dead: Tenn removes and remotely detonates her self-destruct button in order to trick the Tallest into thinking she's dead, so she can go into hiding from the Empire after betraying everything it stands for.
• Fan Boy: The "simp squad" are a group of Resisty recruits who develop crushes on Tenn's "Tima" persona. They're a little off-put by the revelation that she's Irken, but quickly come back around to practically worshipping her.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Naturally, given what the Irkens in general have done to their worlds, initially none of the Resisty are anything but hostile to Tenn, only warming up to her after she saves them from the Massive and starts earning her keep as a member. Eventually, they're all True Companions.
• The Heavy: Despite the Tallest being the looming evil overlords that the Resisty are trying to defeat, Tak is the most prominent antagonist, being a personal foe to Tenn and Sigma. She even ends up outlasting the Tallest, after helping to send them into the Florpus, and then facing Tenn in the Sevato Scourge for control of the Empire.
• Heroic Willpower: Tak runs Tenn through during the Sevato Scourge, but Tenn utterly refuses to give up regardless, still going until Tak falls out of bounds trying to escape her, forfeiting the duel. Only then does Tenn pass out.
• Interspecies Romance: One eventually slowly develops between Tenn (an Irken) and Lard Nar (a Vortian).
• In-Series Nickname: Shloonktapooxis is usually referred to as "Shloonsy" for short, because his full name is too hard to pronounce.
• In Spite Of Nail:
  • Despite Tenn's change of heart, Meekrob still ends up conquered, this time by Tak.
  • Even though it happens in completely different circumstances, the Tallest still end up sucked into the Florpus.
• Kick the Dog:
  • It turns out that Spocke's mockery in Tragedy was correct — the Tallest only sent Tenn to Meekrob to trick them into thinking Invaders aren't actually that well-trained. When they think she's died, they laugh at how she probably never realized it.
  • The only reason that the Tallest agree to let Tak try and conquer Meekrob after Tenn’s "death" is because they expect her to fail, but unintentionally act as a decoy while their real replacement Invader arrives. They're very surprised and disappointed when she pulls it off.
  • When "Tima" is captured and brought before the Tallest, Tak makes a point of playing the Meekrob's recording of Tenn's torture by them, partially to make her expose herself but mostly to make her suffer through reliving it.
• La Résistance: The Resisty, as per canon. Though thanks to Tenn acting as Lard Nar's Hypercompetent Sidekick, they grow from the initial crew into a small army capable of actually fighting back against the Irkens and winning.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Tak ultimately ends up helping send the Tallest into the Florpus, having gotten sick of their constant belittlement of her, as well as seeing them as disgraces to Tallest Miyuki's memory.
• Mythology Gag: Tak thinks about how lucky she was to not crash on Moo-Ping 10, as that would have led to her imprisonment. The production staff of Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus have stated that there was a deleted scene in the movie that would have revealed she was in fact being held in that prison.
• Named by the Adaptation: Prisoner 777 is given the name Ald Noah. And his children, who appeared for all of one panel in one comic issue, are named Lolly, Folly, and Sliss.
• Oblivious to Love:
  • Lard Nar has apparently had a long history of not realizing when females are interested in him. Including Ixane, as it turns out.
  • As Irkens haven't had normal relationships in centuries and have phased out emotions like love, Tenn doesn't realize Lard Nar's attraction to her until directly confronted with it.
• One-Steve Limit: A canonical, if minor, aversion of this is invoked at one point, when Lard Nar disguises himself as an Irken and ends up accidentally passing himself off as Invader Lardnar.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: Lard Nar yells this at Tenn when she ends up naked after her growth spurt shreds her clothes. Since Irkens don't make such a big deal about nudity, she's confused but complies.
• Point of Divergence:
  • Tenn's Heel–Face Turn delays the conquest of Meekrob long enough for Tak to take on the mission for herself, managing to prove herself worthy of being an Invader after all.
  • Tenn's presence onboard the Resisty's ship during their confrontation with the Massive means she's able to save them from having to self-destruct it.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: Even after the Final Battle against the Tallest, Tenn still has to face off with Tak to determine who will be the new Tallest. And even after that, Zim's Infinite Energy Absorbing Blob shows up as a Post-Final Boss.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The enslaved Meekrob are sentenced to being used as a means of recharging the Irkens' power sources.
• Power-Strain Blackout: Happens to Sigma a couple of times, when she overuses her electrical powers as attacks.
• Refuge in Audacity: When Zim catches Dib and "Tima" breaking into his base, he threatens her by saying he's got a brain probe with her name on it. Tenn then takes this literally, demanding he show it to her, distracting Zim as he goes to find a probe and write her given name on it to prove he wasn't being hyperbolic.
• Running Gag:
  • The Tallest complaining about Tak not complying with the Invaders' dress code, to her annoyance.
  • The Resisty naming various rooms for their specific purpose, usually picking a room at random for that use.
  • People commenting that Tenn looks almost exactly like Zim.
  • Dib accidentally doing something to annoy or piss off Tenn.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: During the Final Battle between the Armada and the Resisty, Comms flees his post on the Massive and abandons ship due to realizing he's doomed no matter what, as even if they win, the Tallest are planning to send him to Moo-Ping 10 in Tak's place just because they don't like him.
• Self-Harm: Tenn has to cut into her wrist to remove her self-destruct button so that she can detonate it separately from her body, thereby tricking the Tallest into thinking she's dead.
• Shipper on Deck: Sigma almost instantly starts shipping Tenn and Lard Nar when she realizes Lard Nar has a crush on her.
• Ship Tease: In addition to the budding attraction between Tenn and Lard Nar that runs through most of the story, one of the last chapters hints that Sigma has developed a crush on Dib.
• Space Opera: Whereas Tragedy was a fairly simple story, Rise is told on a much more epic scale, depicting a rebellion that grows across the galaxy and features several large battles, as well as much political intrigue in the later chapters.
• Stupid Evil: Tenn comes to view the Irken Empire as this, due to the fact that the general attitude of doing things For the Evulz tends to not actually accomplish anything worthwhile.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Tenn creates a disguise as a human girl named Tima in order to help Dib infiltrate Zim's base on Earth, and later as a cover to act as a spokesperson for the Resisty without either exposing her treachery to the Empire or scaring away potential recruits. Over time, even those in the know end up referring to her as Tima in private purely out of habit.
• Unwanted Rescue: Ald Noah initially resists being rescued from Moo-Ping 10, because he's convinced that if Zim learns he's escaped, he'll kill Ald Noah's captive children.
• Worthy Opponent: Tak comes to view Tenn as this, specifically referring to her as such when attempting to finish her off during the Sevato Scourge.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Tenn is not happy when she finds out that the Resisty attacked the Massive despite being completely outmatched by it, giving them all a "The Reason You Suck" Speech afterwards.