#*zak

[alright-fuckhead]

Emmerdale Underappreciated Character Week 2025

Day Four (Romantic Relationship) - Lisa and Zak Dingle

[rcdiostcrs]

so i have the headcanon that zombie & human dna don't align well—close enough to reproduce, but children from these unions tend to have some sort of genetic anomaly.

there's also headcanons floating around the fandom on how zombie pregnancy is super hard on the body of the pregnant person because of the inherent nature of zombies. zombies tend to be only children with no mothers because of this. (a post on the hc if you're curious)

building off of these headcanons, i headcanon that zed didn't want kids. or rather, he wanted kids, but he didn't want addison to have to go through what his mom & most of his friends' moms went through.

so when zak was first conceived, zed was terrified. if zombie kids hurt their zombie mothers, what horrors would a human (she may be a quarter alien, but she's functionally human) go through trying to have a zombie kid? he had nightmares of their child poisoning her just by nature of being non-human. GORE TW // he had nightmares of their child ripping through her uterus or lungs to get to her brain. TW END but he didn't confide these fears with her. instead, he told her that there's a reason there aren't many zombie mothers and left it at that.

zak was born with very few complications. it was a kind of mind fuck for zed (same when elijah was born four years later). the complications came more from the first headcanon i mentioned. they were post-birth, coming from zak's vision loss.

[bitchapalooza]

I’ve been watching a looooot of Sam and Colby lately and altho I don’t like their exaggerated reactions, they can get annoying but I know they’re for entertainment purposes, it’s still fun to watch lol

[rcdiostcrs]

“It hurts.”

He said it over and over again, rubbing his eyes like somehow it would cure him. He had never resented his parents for making him this way. His father was a zombie while his mother was a human and that had made his body constantly be a war with itself. It is what caused his blindness. 

Zak just cried himself to sleep at night. More often than not, he would wake up with dried tears on his pillow during his youth. It was those times that he was glad his brother couldn’t hear him from the other room. If he could, Zak felt like he would have kept Elijah awake with his sobbing. Zakariah just didn’t care to be as awful a brother as to keep his brother awake all night as he cried himself out.

“It hurts.”

He said it over and over again, it became his mantra growing up. People always pitied him for his lack of sight. They acted like it was unnatural--that his disability was proof that humans and zombies shouldn’t be together. After all, if their kids were born with something missing due to their DNA not matching up entirely, then obviously they weren’t meant to be together.

And that was what Zak hated most. His existence was used to fuel bigotry. Why couldn’t people just get over themselves and accept that his parents were together. They had loved each other for so long, why did having kids suddenly prove that it was the wrong choice? Sure, his warring genetics may be a result of being a hybrid, but that wasn’t a cause for alarm.

“It hurts.”

He said it over and over again, his mind warring over what to do about the pain. It wasn’t just physical. In fact, it hardly ever was. Being blind didn’t cause him physical pain as he just ran through a brain that he was imperfect. It sucked.

Nothing felt good anymore. His entire existence was a war that people couldn’t understand. People didn’t care to get to know why he hurt or even why his blindness was a blessing. He couldn’t see the haters online, only listen to their rants. As long as he couldn’t see the hatred in their eyes, he told himself that it would be fine.

“It hurts.”

He said it over and over again.

[rcdiostcrs]

zak started learning sign language (asl) at four years old. as soon as it was revealed that his younger brother was deaf, he wanted to learn. zed & addison knew it would take forever for their blind son for learn to communicate with their deaf son & that he would always be shaky, so they wanted to get started right away.

they knew they couldn’t put him in asl classes as they would be to visual, they had to teach him at home. so his parents started looking for asl tutors for zak because, while they were doing their best teaching zak small signs & how to use them, they weren’t the best at it.

zak’s tutor ended up being a woman named freedom edwards (though she told zak to call her ‘miss freedom’). she was a sweet woman who had been using sign language for decades. she tried several techniques before settling on physically taking his hands & forming the gestures & shapes they were supposed to be for that word.

miss freedom still teaches him as he tries to get more words in his vocabulary, get a grasp on the grammar, & tries to get rid of the shakiness.

[rcdiostcrs]

acid, crushing on elijah the roadie: what do i do? i really like him!

anakin, not being helpful: bring him dead mice and birds. that way he knows that you won't let him go hungry.

acid: what does that have to do with anything?

anakin: have you not seen animals? they bring dead things so that mates will know that they can care for a family.

acid: what the fuck anakin. we're not going to get married... yet

zak, from the other side of the stage: if you like my brother, just tell him.

[rcdiostcrs]

‘ Why do you need my birth certificate? If I am here, that’s enough proof that I was born. ‘ (Atticus to Jeckson) // ‘ Zak, I can read sounds now!! ‘ (Elijah to Zak)

crack discord starters.

he sighs, “it proves that you’re who you say you are and not some rando claiming to be atticus winchester.”

“what the fuck, elijah?” he said, signing the words as he spoke.