#zak asks

HAPPY HALLOWEEN ZAK!!!

hdkdbfn i trick or treated until i was like,, 13 and by then i was 'too cool' to trick or treat but i should've trick or treated more :( (tbf tho i'm not the biggest candy eater so i'm not that miffed about it) but this is the first year (aside from you know, covid) none of us go trick or treating! cuz my youngest sib is also in the 'too cool to trick or treat' phase of their life

i'm so excited for the discount candy bags the day after tho LMAOOO

you get a trick!!! bc i have memes to give like candy lolol

hECK YEAH DUDE IMA ANSWER EVRYTHING KJSFKJBD

3. What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

i get possessed by the giant spaghetti monster-- kidding, kidding! i guess it's cursed bc i just open a 200+ google doc? and i wait for it to load? its also cursed bc i usually get into the zone(tm) at around midnight/1am and its good bc yay writing but also some days i just wanna pass tf out and then bamn, i am compelled by the brainworm to stay up till 4am on a weekday. good in the summer, bad during the semester jkbsdkfbs

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

my laptop LMAOOOO. i was reading romeo and juliet for a class and instead of using a pen or leaving the book open my body pulled muscle memory on me and i closed the laptop on the book. see, i used to use my laptop as a folder back in hs and that just carried over

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

hm okay, i definitely started back in my freshman year of hs more for myself than anything. i also started out as an ' [y/n] x character ' writer bc fuck it, i really like them. i still read them from time to time. but it started as 'hey, this doesn't exist. i wanna write it'. i also tried getting into poetry like an edgy mf but im not that creative with words, i've always been better with numbers (tho recently this isn't the case lmaooo). my stuff definitely has a lot of domestic fluff because my ass has a sweet tooth for that type of stuff, ya know? it's only recently that i started shifting away from the y/n and to the 'let other characters interact with each other' genre. there are so many bumps in the road, but my biggest ones are being hella wordy and biting off more than i can chew. i want to be hella ambitious with what i write and i wanna write it all flowery and all that stuff but it doesn't happen. im still finding my style. its all rough around the edges rn (in my opinion) but i want to get better! :D i want to be able to write with a nice flow and with multiple characters, not just two.

28. Who is the most delightful character you’ve ever written? Why?

all of them are delightful!!! if i had to pick a favorite it has to be DAVIS tho. DAVIS has the potential to be absolutely unhinged but also positively restrained? also a big deus ex machina? bc they just rule everything :D i've always been fond of chaotic neutral/chaotic good characters!!! (little shits are my favorite, and in turn, i love reading soft parent/child fics or fics similar)

hi Zak!!!!

of course i don't mind!! i'm actually pretty nervous about this one since even after a while i don't feel like i have a good grasp on marius' character and default to 'bratty mysterious ceo' but he's also one with a secret identity that fits in well with the series about finding out secrets LMAO

and that's the just of it, the nxx find out he's Z, illustrious artist extraordinaire! obviously there's gonna be more, but a lot of it is definitely up in the air. like, i do wanna have something about marius being burnt out and how the rest of the nxx take him to do stuff that help them with burn out. i also want the rest of the nxx to figure it out one by one (like a 3 + 1 type of thing) and have it be a little bit different than black sheep but the same fundamental formula.

but i'm also having trouble figuring out how the hell the rest of the nxx gets introduced to art (artem's is easy. just stick his art in a movie, but the rest? i mean, maybe luke can commission something lolol)

along the same lines, i'm also thinking about luke's portion of the series cuz the rest of the nxx does know that he's raven, but that one i think i wanna delve into the implications of being raven! like okay, we know he's raven, but what does he do? and yeah more series stuff!

hjkdshjdb TEENAGE ARTIEEE

honestly the scene that started it all was when celestine saw artem for the first time!!! like she goes in expecting baby artem or maybe even a pre-teen artem and then the juxtaposition of that mental image with basically an adult-bodied artem just ruffled my feathers.

Celestine can honestly say that seeing Artem for the first time gave her whiplash. She was expecting a middle school student, not… an adult man! The fucker was taller than her! Even if it was by a little, but still! The… guy… was standing in front of them dressed in a black uniform with white accents, a black vest under his jacket, and a tie with red, black, and white diagonal stripes. The uniform wasn’t tight on him, but it did seem to be short. His pant legs were just above his ankle, though he wore black socks to cover any exposed skin.

irt the tot mutual meme:

you hear that mom?!!! i'm a sunshine person!!! also did not expect marius in any way shape or form so that one was interesting!! (ok maybe i expected that i ramble a lot bc i dO)

i def handshake you on the overachiever thing bc that is very true, irl i've also been told i give off those vibes lmaooo bUT I DID NOT EXPECT TO BE INTIMIDATING BSJSKSBD!! is this how artem feels like?? i was fully expecting 'please unclench' but intimidating caught me off guard 😂

but at least now you know that i'm not intimidating just a nerd who likes science, otome bois, and memes? jdksjdjd

heyo zak! hELL YEAH LETS GOOOO

H: How would you describe your style?

i guess i could go with 'someone who is trying to come up with one'? i don't have much time writing fics (maybe 2.5 years but even at that not consistently) so my style is pretty malleable at this point. i feel like you can track my progress in real-time with some fics.

i feel like consistently tho, i tend to write dialogue-heavy fics. characters talking and making quips make the plot go brr. oh and also explaining myself/the plot a lot. i have noticed tho that i tend to have these 'blatant exposition' portions in more recent fics bc haha, i like explaining myself

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

oh im def an impulsive gardener with like,,, a tiny house.

ive made outlines and stuff before but i feel like i work best if i just sit down and write in one go. i found, actually, that the more i try to plan ahead the more likely it is i won't write something. i just feel like i'm overthinking it.

hell, back when i was in middle/high school i would get in trouble for not planning or just turning in word barf ideas with one central one circled. it's just easier for me to have a vague idea and run with it. (i think thats an effect of years of standardized testing tho lmaooo)

the thing is that it causes me to,, need outside sources when it comes to inspiration. i love ping-ponging ideas with others and honestly? thats where 90% of the plots come from. otherwise, i just have to just sit there waiting for inspiration to strike. thats probably why a lot of my fics have sequels, i like to build off of what's already there and make it new or add my own spice to it

once i'm actually writing i have this vague idea of where i want the plot to go but otherwise i hit it raw. like, i just sit there and let the characters talk it out in my head lmaoo. i don't tend to spend days on fics tho bc then i start losing steam. i also just tend to like,, zone out and daydream about what should happen. that's honestly as much planning as i do: i daydream about it.

and then i just post it hella raw aside from a quick garmmarly check. it goes back to me overthinking, if i keep it in my megadoc after im done i just wanna nitpick it and that ain't healthy lmaoo.

so yeah,, impulsive gardener with a tiny house LOL.