Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 7 (click to see context) from:
to:
* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14344509/1/Overbuzzed Overbuzzed]]'': Zim talks Tak into another SIR match, only to face a scheduling conflict as he has to also give a presentation to the Tallest at the same time.
Changed line(s) 12 (click to see context) from:
* ArtifactTitle: Only the original story has anything to do with the canonical episode it's an adaptation of, and past the second story the series stops being driven by competitions between SIR Units. Editor-Bug eventually acknowledged this, hence why for ''Trading Dismay'' the title drops "''Top of the Line''".
to:
* ArtifactTitle: Only the original story has anything to do with the canonical episode it's an adaptation of, and past the second story the series stops being driven by competitions between SIR Units.Units (even the fifth story only has it as one of two equal plots). Editor-Bug eventually acknowledged this, hence why for ''Trading Dismay'' the title drops "''Top of the Line''".
Changed line(s) 22 (click to see context) from:
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Zim admits this to himself in ''Trading Dismay'' about his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn, acknowledging to himself that while he thought about how to get close to Tak, he didn't put any consideration about what to do after that.
to:
* DidntThinkThisThrough: DidntThinkThisThrough:
** Zim admits this to himself in ''Trading Dismay'' about his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn, acknowledging to himself that while he thought about how to get close to Tak, he didn't put any consideration about what to do afterthat.that.
** In ''Overbuzzed'', Zim does everything to prepare for another match with Tak, except upgrade GIR for it despite knowing that [=MiMi=] likely will be. He only realizes this when Skoodge brings it up right before Tak's arrival.
** Zim admits this to himself in ''Trading Dismay'' about his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn, acknowledging to himself that while he thought about how to get close to Tak, he didn't put any consideration about what to do after
** In ''Overbuzzed'', Zim does everything to prepare for another match with Tak, except upgrade GIR for it despite knowing that [=MiMi=] likely will be. He only realizes this when Skoodge brings it up right before Tak's arrival.
Added DiffLines:
* MechanicalAnimals: In ''Overbuzzed'', Zim tries to impress the Tallest with "cy-cadas", cybernetic cicadas with various upgrades.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 55 (click to see context) from:
* StraghtMan: Between Zim's egotistical mania, Tak's obsessive need to one-up him, and Skoodge's naivety, Tenn tends to be the OnlySaneMan reacting to all the insanity around her.
to:
* StraghtMan: StraightMan: Between Zim's egotistical mania, Tak's obsessive need to one-up him, and Skoodge's naivety, Tenn tends to be the OnlySaneMan reacting to all the insanity around her.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
* SeriesFic: While each fic is a standalone story, they follow on from the ones that came before them.
Changed line(s) 58 (click to see context) from:
* TertiarySexualCharacteristics: Lampshaded for laughs in ''Trading Dismay'', where Zim arranges his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn by means of ripping off her eyelashes (which she refers to her as her "defining characteristics") and wearing them on his own eyes while also curling his antennae, while she straightens hers to match his usual look.
to:
* TertiarySexualCharacteristics: Lampshaded for laughs in ''Trading Dismay'', where Zim arranges his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn by means of ripping off her eyelashes (which she refers to her as her "defining characteristics") and wearing them on his own eyes while also curling his antennae, while she straightens hers to match his usual look.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13485509/1/Top-of-the-Line Top of the Line]]'' is an ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' oneshot by Editor-Bug on Website/FanFictionDotNet. Based on the unproduced canonical episode of the same name, it features Zim forcing his way into a tournament for Invaders and their SIR Units, and the chaos that unfolds. Especially when Tak shows up as well, intending to one-up him for good.
While originally meant as a standalone story, it has since grown into a series, as Editor-Bug keeps coming up with more oneshot sequels set in the same universe. They are as follows:
*''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13813101/1/Top-of-the-Line-2-The-Rematch Top of the Line 2: The Rematch]]'': Tak arrives on Earth, demanding a rematch between her and Zim's SIR Units. However, things quickly spiral out of control.
*''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14158249/1/Top-of-the-Line-3-The-Remedy Top of the Line 3: The Remedy]]'': Zim encounters Tak on the mechanical planet Aggrage 9. Convinced she's plotting something, he investigates, and just ends up creating a bigger mess.
*''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14223244/1/Trading-Dismay Trading Dismay]]'': As part of an ill-devised scheme, Zim swaps places with Tenn in order to spy on Tak.
!!Tropes in this series
*AIIsACrapshoot: In ''The Rematch'', [[spoiler: the space station that Tak hijacks is controlled by a supercomputer called Space Case (SC for short). When reactivated, it reveals its purpose is to rid the universe of all evil [[KnightTemplar by killing everyone it considers to be such]]]].
*AccidentalMisnaming: The Tallest accidentally call Tak "Zack" during the final round of the tournament.
*ArtifactTitle: Only the original story has anything to do with the canonical episode it's an adaptation of, and past the second story the series stops being driven by competitions between SIR Units. Editor-Bug eventually acknowledged this, hence why for ''Trading Dismay'' the title drops "''Top of the Line''".
*{{BFG}}: [=MiMi's=] upgraded form in ''The Rematch'' is built around an enormous blaster contained within her body.
*BlatantLies: When Zim ends his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn at the end of ''Trading Dismay'', Skoodge pretends that he knew about it the whole time, even though he's clearly shocked by seeing them swap back.
*BrickJoke:
**At the start of the first story, it's mentioned that all non-Invaders have to pay extra for parking. At the end of the story, Tak realizes that having lost the tournament (and thus her chance to finally become an Invader) means that now she'll have to pay the extra fee.
**Early in ''Trading Dismay'', when Zim is forcing Tenn into his RoleSwapPlot, he tries to also do a ClothingSwitch so that they'll have each other's musk in order to really sell the illusion, but she refuses. When they switch back at the end of the story, Skoodge tries to claim he wasn't fooled by it by saying he could tell by the musk.
*ChekhovsGun: Midway through ''The Rematch'', Tenn mentions a sensory overload machine that Tak used to torment her into agreeing to work for her. At the climax, [[spoiler: they hook Space Case's wires up to the machine to overload and shut down the AI]].
*CutAndPasteNote: Tak leaves one behind when she abducts GIR in ''The Rematch''. Skoodge questions why she'd even bother making one if she was just going to sign it anyway.
*DeusExMachina: As Zim struggles to figure out how to get past the tournament's security, which won't let him in because he's not really an Invader, it suddenly turns out that Skoodge stowed away aboard the Voot underneath Zim's seat, allowing Zim to use him to get past the security. GIR even cheerfully [[LampshadeHanging refers to it]] as a "Skoodge ex machina".
*DickDastardlyStopsToCheat: [[spoiler: If Tak hadn't felt the need to sabotage all the other SIR Units, GIR would have been eliminated from the tournament early on. Instead, letting him get to the last round gives Zim a chance to win with GIR's Ultimate Duty Mode.]]
*DidntThinkThisThrough: Zim admits this to himself in ''Trading Dismay'' about his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn, acknowledging to himself that while he thought about how to get close to Tak, he didn't put any consideration about what to do after that.
*DressedInLayers: In ''The Remedy'', Tak is eventually shown to be wearing her usual clothes under her Aggrage 9 mechanic's uniform.
*DrivesLikeCrazy: When Zim switches places with Tenn in ''Trading Dismay'', he takes her GELL Fighter jet to fly back to Aggrage 9. Not being familiar with how to fly one, he ends up crashing into various space objects on his way there; later, he also crashes into his own base when he returns to Earth.
*DumbassHasAPoint: Purple doesn't take the tournament as seriously as Red does, pointing out that the whole thing is just something they put together at random for their entertainment.
*EnemyMine:
**During the climax of ''The Rematch'', Zim and Tak (and by extension Skoodge and Tenn) have to put aside their differences to [[spoiler: escape from Space Case.]]
**Similarly, during the climax of ''The Remedy'', the four team up against Erbium when he decides to melt them all down.
*EveryoneHasStandards: Tenn is offended by Tak [[spoiler: cheating in the tournament by sabotaging the other Invaders' [=SIRs=]]], seeing it as making her unworthy of being an Invader.
*EyeScream: At one point in ''The Rematch'', Skoodge has wires go into his eyes when [[spoiler: SC starts draining his life energy]].
*FantasticRacism: Erbium, Tak's supervisor on Aggrage 9, clearly hates Irkens and makes it clear he only hired her to help him meet his quotas. He constantly talks down to her and takes any excuse to berate her or insult her species in general.
*FireballEyeballs: When Tak sees that Zim has managed to sneak his way into the tournament, fires light up in her eyes, hot enough to [[RuleOfFunny melt the snow cone she's holding]].
*FlatWhat: Tak's reaction when Zim declares his belief that she's in love with him.
*ForInconveniencePressOne: Zim has to deal with one of these to get onto Aggrage 9. It's actually a fairly easy and straightforward example, but he's still annoyed by it.
*HowTheMightyHaveFallen: By ''The Remedy'', Tak has gone from Zim's dangerous rival to working as a lowly mechanic on Aggrage 9, being constantly berated by her bigoted boss. Zim is deeply offended by this and tries to rile her up back to her old self. [[spoiler: By the end of the story, she's brainwashed said boss and is now running the planet, intending to eventually return to her old lifestyle once she's bored of this.]]
*HumanShield: Or Irken shield, as it were. In ''The Rematch'', Zim drags Skoodge along and specifically labels him a "meat shield". Oddly, Skoodge has no problem with this.
*MindRape: Tenn explains that Tak did this to her prior to ''The Rematch'' in order to force her cooperation in upgrading [=MiMi=] for the titular match, by means of hooking Tenn up to a machine that overwhelmed her senses with nightmarish stimuli until she broke. [[spoiler: They later use the machine to defeat Space Case.]]
*NiceJobBreakingItHero: For a given definition of "hero", Zim ends up making the plot of ''The Rematch'' needlessly more complicated when he spitefully destroys the remote Tak uses to control her space station, meaning there's now no way to open the hanger doors, leaving everyone stranded onboard. [[spoiler: Then he and Tenn turn the station's central computer back on in search of a way to open them, inadvertently awakening Space Case, who tries to kill all the Irkens.]]
*NotHyperbole: When Tak says that people on Aggrage 9 work for peanuts, she means they're literally paid in peanuts.
*NotSoDifferentRemark: Skoodge tries to say this about Zim and Tak in ''The Rematch'', but she shuts him up before he can even finish his sentence.
*ObliviousToHatred: Zim, as usual, doesn't grasp that his whole species hates him. And on a more personal level, he's convinced that Tak's obsession with him is because of being in love with him, rather than despising him.
*OracularHead:
**At the end of the tournament, [[spoiler: [=MiMi=] is reduced to just a head after GIR destroys the rest of her with his Ultimate Duty Mode]].
**GIR is blown apart by [=MiMi's=] {{BFG}} in ''The Rematch'', leaving only his head remaining afterwards. He stays like that for the rest of the story.
*PaperThinDisguise: The RoleSwapPlot in ''Trading Dismay'' is enabled by Zim stealing Tenn's eyelashes and rearranging his antennae into the curly shape of hers, while she straightens hers out to match his. [[spoiler: While GIR and Skoodge are tricked, it turns out at the end that Tak wasn't, and just played along to have an excuse to boss Zim around.]]
*PlanetOfHats:
**The planet that the SIR Tourney is held on, Arenia, is an uninhabited barren rock with nothing on it but a dilapidated colosseum used for the tournament.
**Aggrage 9 is an entirely mechanized planet that serves as a giant mechanics shop for spaceships.
*RoleSwapPlot: Zim forces Tenn to switch places with him in ''Trading Dismay'' so that he can spy on Tak (though Tenn thinks he's just bored and living vicariously through her). Zim thus spends the day working under Tak on Aggrage 9, while Tenn is stuck carrying out one of his world domination schemes on Earth.
*ShipperOnDeck: Skoodge fully supports Zim and Tak as a couple, even when it's clear they hate each other.
*ShipTease: By the later stories of the series, Zim and Tak do actually start showing signs of attraction, in a BelligerentSexualTension sort of way.
*SideBet: The terms of Zim and Tak's SIR fight in ''The Rematch'' are that if Tak wins, she not only takes his mission, but he stays trapped on her space station forever. Skoodge and Tenn, who were respectively dragged along by them, are allowed to bet on the outcome of the match, with the loser being stuck on the space station too. [[spoiler: Tak wins, but the resulting fight with Space Case invalidates the bet as the four of them have to work together to survive him, then call a truce and leave together.]]
*SpaceStation: Tak took over an abandoned one prior to ''The Rematch'' in order to use as an arena for her rematch with Zim, intending to strand him there after she wins. [[spoiler: It turns out to be the vessel for the AI Space Case, which turns it into a death trap when reactivated.]]
*StraghtMan: Between Zim's egotistical mania, Tak's obsessive need to one-up him, and Skoodge's naivety, Tenn tends to be the OnlySaneMan reacting to all the insanity around her.
*StrangeMindsThinkAlike: Skoodge for some reason shares Zim's misconception that Tak is in love with him.
*StunnedSilence: When Zim declares his belief that Tak is in love with him in an attempt to publicly humiliate her, the whole tournament goes completely quiet and stares at him.
*SuperMode: The "Ultimate Duty Mode" that Zim creates for GIR for the tournament, which makes him an unstoppable force of destruction, but is meant as a one-use last resort due to how much power it uses up.
*TertiarySexualCharacteristics: Lampshaded for laughs in ''Trading Dismay'', where Zim arranges his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn by means of ripping off her eyelashes (which she refers to her as her "defining characteristics") and wearing them on his own eyes while also curling his antennae, while she straightens hers to match his usual look.
*TookALevelInBadass: [=MiMi=] is rebuilt for the tournament to be taller, bulkier, and overall more dangerous. In ''The Rematch'', Tak upgrades her to be even larger to give herself an edge.
*UndyingLoyalty: Skoodge is completely loyal to Zim, despite Zim clearly not caring in return.
*UnknownRival: Played with in regards to Zim's view on Tak. He initially doesn't recognize her in the first story, only for it to come back to him a moment later. He still remembers her at first in ''The Rematch'', only to forget her a few scenes later and needing a reminder. After that, he never forgets again, something she notes with annoyance considering they've declared a truce by then.
*WhipOfDominance: Purple happily whips the construction drones building the tournament arena's challenge areas, more for fun than to encourage their work.
*WorthyOpponent:
**In his own twisted way, Zim develops a view of Tak as this, which is why he's so offended in ''The Remedy'' by her actually moving on from their rivalry, and even more offended by seeing how browbeaten she's gotten from her job on Aggrage 9.
**For her part, despite hating him, Tak is still willing to admit that Zim provides a challenge that her life would be lacking without.
*YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: Red is less than pleased to see Zim show up at the tournament.
While originally meant as a standalone story, it has since grown into a series, as Editor-Bug keeps coming up with more oneshot sequels set in the same universe. They are as follows:
*''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13813101/1/Top-of-the-Line-2-The-Rematch Top of the Line 2: The Rematch]]'': Tak arrives on Earth, demanding a rematch between her and Zim's SIR Units. However, things quickly spiral out of control.
*''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14158249/1/Top-of-the-Line-3-The-Remedy Top of the Line 3: The Remedy]]'': Zim encounters Tak on the mechanical planet Aggrage 9. Convinced she's plotting something, he investigates, and just ends up creating a bigger mess.
*''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14223244/1/Trading-Dismay Trading Dismay]]'': As part of an ill-devised scheme, Zim swaps places with Tenn in order to spy on Tak.
!!Tropes in this series
*AIIsACrapshoot: In ''The Rematch'', [[spoiler: the space station that Tak hijacks is controlled by a supercomputer called Space Case (SC for short). When reactivated, it reveals its purpose is to rid the universe of all evil [[KnightTemplar by killing everyone it considers to be such]]]].
*AccidentalMisnaming: The Tallest accidentally call Tak "Zack" during the final round of the tournament.
*ArtifactTitle: Only the original story has anything to do with the canonical episode it's an adaptation of, and past the second story the series stops being driven by competitions between SIR Units. Editor-Bug eventually acknowledged this, hence why for ''Trading Dismay'' the title drops "''Top of the Line''".
*{{BFG}}: [=MiMi's=] upgraded form in ''The Rematch'' is built around an enormous blaster contained within her body.
*BlatantLies: When Zim ends his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn at the end of ''Trading Dismay'', Skoodge pretends that he knew about it the whole time, even though he's clearly shocked by seeing them swap back.
*BrickJoke:
**At the start of the first story, it's mentioned that all non-Invaders have to pay extra for parking. At the end of the story, Tak realizes that having lost the tournament (and thus her chance to finally become an Invader) means that now she'll have to pay the extra fee.
**Early in ''Trading Dismay'', when Zim is forcing Tenn into his RoleSwapPlot, he tries to also do a ClothingSwitch so that they'll have each other's musk in order to really sell the illusion, but she refuses. When they switch back at the end of the story, Skoodge tries to claim he wasn't fooled by it by saying he could tell by the musk.
*ChekhovsGun: Midway through ''The Rematch'', Tenn mentions a sensory overload machine that Tak used to torment her into agreeing to work for her. At the climax, [[spoiler: they hook Space Case's wires up to the machine to overload and shut down the AI]].
*CutAndPasteNote: Tak leaves one behind when she abducts GIR in ''The Rematch''. Skoodge questions why she'd even bother making one if she was just going to sign it anyway.
*DeusExMachina: As Zim struggles to figure out how to get past the tournament's security, which won't let him in because he's not really an Invader, it suddenly turns out that Skoodge stowed away aboard the Voot underneath Zim's seat, allowing Zim to use him to get past the security. GIR even cheerfully [[LampshadeHanging refers to it]] as a "Skoodge ex machina".
*DickDastardlyStopsToCheat: [[spoiler: If Tak hadn't felt the need to sabotage all the other SIR Units, GIR would have been eliminated from the tournament early on. Instead, letting him get to the last round gives Zim a chance to win with GIR's Ultimate Duty Mode.]]
*DidntThinkThisThrough: Zim admits this to himself in ''Trading Dismay'' about his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn, acknowledging to himself that while he thought about how to get close to Tak, he didn't put any consideration about what to do after that.
*DressedInLayers: In ''The Remedy'', Tak is eventually shown to be wearing her usual clothes under her Aggrage 9 mechanic's uniform.
*DrivesLikeCrazy: When Zim switches places with Tenn in ''Trading Dismay'', he takes her GELL Fighter jet to fly back to Aggrage 9. Not being familiar with how to fly one, he ends up crashing into various space objects on his way there; later, he also crashes into his own base when he returns to Earth.
*DumbassHasAPoint: Purple doesn't take the tournament as seriously as Red does, pointing out that the whole thing is just something they put together at random for their entertainment.
*EnemyMine:
**During the climax of ''The Rematch'', Zim and Tak (and by extension Skoodge and Tenn) have to put aside their differences to [[spoiler: escape from Space Case.]]
**Similarly, during the climax of ''The Remedy'', the four team up against Erbium when he decides to melt them all down.
*EveryoneHasStandards: Tenn is offended by Tak [[spoiler: cheating in the tournament by sabotaging the other Invaders' [=SIRs=]]], seeing it as making her unworthy of being an Invader.
*EyeScream: At one point in ''The Rematch'', Skoodge has wires go into his eyes when [[spoiler: SC starts draining his life energy]].
*FantasticRacism: Erbium, Tak's supervisor on Aggrage 9, clearly hates Irkens and makes it clear he only hired her to help him meet his quotas. He constantly talks down to her and takes any excuse to berate her or insult her species in general.
*FireballEyeballs: When Tak sees that Zim has managed to sneak his way into the tournament, fires light up in her eyes, hot enough to [[RuleOfFunny melt the snow cone she's holding]].
*FlatWhat: Tak's reaction when Zim declares his belief that she's in love with him.
*ForInconveniencePressOne: Zim has to deal with one of these to get onto Aggrage 9. It's actually a fairly easy and straightforward example, but he's still annoyed by it.
*HowTheMightyHaveFallen: By ''The Remedy'', Tak has gone from Zim's dangerous rival to working as a lowly mechanic on Aggrage 9, being constantly berated by her bigoted boss. Zim is deeply offended by this and tries to rile her up back to her old self. [[spoiler: By the end of the story, she's brainwashed said boss and is now running the planet, intending to eventually return to her old lifestyle once she's bored of this.]]
*HumanShield: Or Irken shield, as it were. In ''The Rematch'', Zim drags Skoodge along and specifically labels him a "meat shield". Oddly, Skoodge has no problem with this.
*MindRape: Tenn explains that Tak did this to her prior to ''The Rematch'' in order to force her cooperation in upgrading [=MiMi=] for the titular match, by means of hooking Tenn up to a machine that overwhelmed her senses with nightmarish stimuli until she broke. [[spoiler: They later use the machine to defeat Space Case.]]
*NiceJobBreakingItHero: For a given definition of "hero", Zim ends up making the plot of ''The Rematch'' needlessly more complicated when he spitefully destroys the remote Tak uses to control her space station, meaning there's now no way to open the hanger doors, leaving everyone stranded onboard. [[spoiler: Then he and Tenn turn the station's central computer back on in search of a way to open them, inadvertently awakening Space Case, who tries to kill all the Irkens.]]
*NotHyperbole: When Tak says that people on Aggrage 9 work for peanuts, she means they're literally paid in peanuts.
*NotSoDifferentRemark: Skoodge tries to say this about Zim and Tak in ''The Rematch'', but she shuts him up before he can even finish his sentence.
*ObliviousToHatred: Zim, as usual, doesn't grasp that his whole species hates him. And on a more personal level, he's convinced that Tak's obsession with him is because of being in love with him, rather than despising him.
*OracularHead:
**At the end of the tournament, [[spoiler: [=MiMi=] is reduced to just a head after GIR destroys the rest of her with his Ultimate Duty Mode]].
**GIR is blown apart by [=MiMi's=] {{BFG}} in ''The Rematch'', leaving only his head remaining afterwards. He stays like that for the rest of the story.
*PaperThinDisguise: The RoleSwapPlot in ''Trading Dismay'' is enabled by Zim stealing Tenn's eyelashes and rearranging his antennae into the curly shape of hers, while she straightens hers out to match his. [[spoiler: While GIR and Skoodge are tricked, it turns out at the end that Tak wasn't, and just played along to have an excuse to boss Zim around.]]
*PlanetOfHats:
**The planet that the SIR Tourney is held on, Arenia, is an uninhabited barren rock with nothing on it but a dilapidated colosseum used for the tournament.
**Aggrage 9 is an entirely mechanized planet that serves as a giant mechanics shop for spaceships.
*RoleSwapPlot: Zim forces Tenn to switch places with him in ''Trading Dismay'' so that he can spy on Tak (though Tenn thinks he's just bored and living vicariously through her). Zim thus spends the day working under Tak on Aggrage 9, while Tenn is stuck carrying out one of his world domination schemes on Earth.
*ShipperOnDeck: Skoodge fully supports Zim and Tak as a couple, even when it's clear they hate each other.
*ShipTease: By the later stories of the series, Zim and Tak do actually start showing signs of attraction, in a BelligerentSexualTension sort of way.
*SideBet: The terms of Zim and Tak's SIR fight in ''The Rematch'' are that if Tak wins, she not only takes his mission, but he stays trapped on her space station forever. Skoodge and Tenn, who were respectively dragged along by them, are allowed to bet on the outcome of the match, with the loser being stuck on the space station too. [[spoiler: Tak wins, but the resulting fight with Space Case invalidates the bet as the four of them have to work together to survive him, then call a truce and leave together.]]
*SpaceStation: Tak took over an abandoned one prior to ''The Rematch'' in order to use as an arena for her rematch with Zim, intending to strand him there after she wins. [[spoiler: It turns out to be the vessel for the AI Space Case, which turns it into a death trap when reactivated.]]
*StraghtMan: Between Zim's egotistical mania, Tak's obsessive need to one-up him, and Skoodge's naivety, Tenn tends to be the OnlySaneMan reacting to all the insanity around her.
*StrangeMindsThinkAlike: Skoodge for some reason shares Zim's misconception that Tak is in love with him.
*StunnedSilence: When Zim declares his belief that Tak is in love with him in an attempt to publicly humiliate her, the whole tournament goes completely quiet and stares at him.
*SuperMode: The "Ultimate Duty Mode" that Zim creates for GIR for the tournament, which makes him an unstoppable force of destruction, but is meant as a one-use last resort due to how much power it uses up.
*TertiarySexualCharacteristics: Lampshaded for laughs in ''Trading Dismay'', where Zim arranges his RoleSwapPlot with Tenn by means of ripping off her eyelashes (which she refers to her as her "defining characteristics") and wearing them on his own eyes while also curling his antennae, while she straightens hers to match his usual look.
*TookALevelInBadass: [=MiMi=] is rebuilt for the tournament to be taller, bulkier, and overall more dangerous. In ''The Rematch'', Tak upgrades her to be even larger to give herself an edge.
*UndyingLoyalty: Skoodge is completely loyal to Zim, despite Zim clearly not caring in return.
*UnknownRival: Played with in regards to Zim's view on Tak. He initially doesn't recognize her in the first story, only for it to come back to him a moment later. He still remembers her at first in ''The Rematch'', only to forget her a few scenes later and needing a reminder. After that, he never forgets again, something she notes with annoyance considering they've declared a truce by then.
*WhipOfDominance: Purple happily whips the construction drones building the tournament arena's challenge areas, more for fun than to encourage their work.
*WorthyOpponent:
**In his own twisted way, Zim develops a view of Tak as this, which is why he's so offended in ''The Remedy'' by her actually moving on from their rivalry, and even more offended by seeing how browbeaten she's gotten from her job on Aggrage 9.
**For her part, despite hating him, Tak is still willing to admit that Zim provides a challenge that her life would be lacking without.
*YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: Red is less than pleased to see Zim show up at the tournament.
