#although in this context their faces are mix of sadness anger and disappointment

[dandelion-idk]

If we don't see Octavio in the next game you know what happened

Bonus:

Welp. Anyway.

[little-lemon-lattes]

The Scheme

🌛Zelda Spellman x fem! reader

—Word count: 1.9k

— Triggers: Mention of murder and burning in a non-violent context

— Summary: We have part 2 to The Set Up! You and Zelda spend a blissful day together since kissing the night before, and make the most of being together before the mortuary fills with life- and typical Spellman scheming- again!

You were on Cloud-fucking-9.

The previous evening, you and Zelda had kissed. It had been truly extraordinary, even better than the few times you had allowed your mind to indulge in that kind of imagery concerning her. You had never felt that good with anyone before; well, minding that you had neither felt for anyone like that of which you had been trying to cover for the astonishing woman.

She currently lay in the grass next to you, cheek resting tentatively on your belly, as you both just watched each other in comfortable silence. Gosh, kissing Zelda had felt SO good that it had been hard to stop at just one. Like now. Her stunningly bright and beautiful green eyes were boring into yours, but you really couldn’t tell if she was trying to send you a signal or was just unwittingly that gorgeous on the daily. Probably the latter. You also had to remind yourself that, EVEN though you two already lived under the same roof, you would take things one step at a time together. The last 24 hours with Zelda had been like a dream, and the Spellman mortuary had a new air to it now that you knew where you stood.

That morning, you had woken just before dawn (which was much earlier than you preferred), likely still on a high from the feel of Zelda’s lips. Rather than lay there attempting to force yourself back to sleep, you rose from your pillow. Perhaps it was your always-lingering insecurity pulling some strings, but it suddenly seemed desperately important to you- then and there at 4:56am- that you find a way of proving to Zelda that she hadn’t made the wrong choice opening up to you the night before. Just one more bonus of Hilda’s disappearance that weekend being that the kitchen was inevitably free, within a few minutes you had decided to make a spot of breakfast to share. You would never admit it out loud, but you were also buzzing to showcase your culinary ability; of which had been somewhat hindered by the unspoken acknowledgement that Hilda was the kitchen witch of the house.

With that, you were out of bed and clothed in a black turtleneck and mom jeans, as you put the finishing touches on a French braid: all by 5:15. THe next two hours flew by as you whipped up black coffee, almond cake, black sausage, eggs, salmon, bagels, mushroom, and tomato. You were just laying out bloody-fleshed plums and yoghurt when you heard gentle footsteps on the landing above you. Smiling softly, you stopped to admire as the woman padded down the stairs, wrapped in a silky black robe and wiping bits of sleep from her eyes. She stopped dead as she spotted the food on the table, hand still raised to her eye.

“Surprise...?” you peeped.

Zelda’s hand flopped to her side as she tilted her head adorably, treating you to a giddy smile. And you were hopeless to try not to smile right back. That there was enough to have made the last two hours worth it. “

“What’s all this, y/n?”

“I, uh... breakfast?”

Zelda couldn’t help smiling a little more at the cute way you had made it seem like a question. “I see that,” she laughed, “but why?”

You forced an expression of mock pain onto your face.

“I am hurt, Spellman, hurt! Does there have to be a reason?”

All she did was raise her eyebrows in disbelief. You supposed it was probably best to build any chance you had together on honesty.

“Okay, FINE. I just... wanted to show you that last night wasn’t a mistake, in case you were having any doubts.”

Zelda trotted, cat-like, down from her post against the railing, and came to rest just half a metre in front of you.

“Why, there was absolutely nothing of the sort. I hardly slept a wink all night; your lips have something of a memorable feel to them, if I am honest.”

And this time, it was her that closed the space between you, snaking her arms around your waist to pull you closer. One long peck later, the bubblegum-pink shade of your cheeks matched hers in perfect unison, as if in competition.

Breakfast was sweet and long, spent thigh to thigh next to each other, chatting about all the things you had been too afraid to ask each other until that point.

The rest of the day was passed laying next to one another in the winter sunshine, beneath an age-old willow tree. After what felt like just minutes since you had arrived (but had really been hours), you pointed to the sky with the hand that wasn’t clasping Zelda’s.

“Look, the sun!”

You received a lazy “hmmm” in response. Twisting to face her on your left, you couldn’t fight your sigh of content. The High Priestess was laying with her eyes closed in utter bliss, the final rays of Sunday’s sunshine dancing across those glorious lashes.

“It’s setting, Zelda. Everyone will be back soon.” you murmured to her. It was as if you had thrown a bucket of ice over her. Cloud 9 disappeared with the snapping open of her eyes. The soft expression that had occupied her visage all day visibly hardened into her more familiar, stoic one. She leapt to her feet, snatching up the open novel beside her and swinging out her hand to you with force. Time and Space closed in around you the moment you took it, and, the next thing you knew, the two of you were outside the mortuary once more.

You turned to her sharply.

“What was that about?” you demanded. Standing silent for a moment, Zelda’s ears visibly pricked. After a few more moments, she seemed appeased, and swivelled to you. Her shoulders were tense, and you took note of her fingernails digging into her palm.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I didn’t mean to be so abrupt. I just... I am enthused about where you and I are headed, y/n, and I’m terrified that others may not share my enthusiasm. I want to enjoy things as they are at present for a while longer, before having to think about who needs to be involved in our business.”

It was understandable, you supposed, and admittedly: there was a certain appeal to keeping things 007-style, like that fantastic mortal film. You relaxed a bit, and instantly felt awful for raising your voice at her.

You reached for the woman’s shoulder.

“You’re right, Zelds. I understand.”

She looked unconvinced.

“Are you sure? You have every right to want to murder me right now, if you so wished. Although, only if you were to bury me in the Cain pit...” she added as an afterthought.

You had to giggle at that one.

“You’re safe for now, Zelda,” you teased, “now, come on! I need to find a good hiding spot for scaring the BANSHEES out of them when they get back!”

Hilda, Sabrina, and Ambrose literally stomped their feet in sheer disappointment when they arrived back at the house and hadn’t caught the pair of you locked in some form of intimate embrace.

“Aw man! What will I tell my friends?! I had Roz totally excited about y/n finally getting some action... Like, she seriously admitted that she had this big crush on her when she first met her; whiiiiich definitely earned a few looks from Harvey, to say the least. The take-away from it all is that we now know exactly how fragile that guy’s ego is, YIKES, is all I can say.”

All the while, Ambrose was muttering a consistent string of “fuck”s under his breath, and Hilda was deciding whether to scald Sabrina’s ass to Hades and back.

“Sabrina!” her aunt admonished in disbelief, “how could you be so careless?! If any of this gets back to your aunt Zelda, we should consider ourselves excommunicated from her presence for good!”  

All of them fought a cringe. Sabrina looked a bit sheepish.

Hilda turned to Ambrose.

“And what about you, mister? What’s with the constant profanities?”

Ambrose took a step back from his aunt, nobody was sure whether consciously or not. “Erm...hm. Yes. Well. I-” his sputtering was resembling a car trying to start up. Ambrose’s eyes suddenly seemed unable to reach past the witches’ knees.

  “-um. Damn. Hecate, yes, I have... just lost a particularly large sum of money to one Dorian Gray.”

Hilda’s eyes were ready to pop out of her head.   “I was so unequivocally certain that our plan would work! Now where I am supposed to come up with $1000?!”

He was a little manic. The only one of the three who seemed somewhat happy about Ambrose’s situation was Sabrina, sticking a finger at him. “HA! Now that makes what I did so much better!”

Her plum-coloured lips parted with glee, and without warning, her and her travel bag had disappeared. Ambrose made a furious mental note to pour formaldehyde in her evening tea for leaving him here alone. When he had finally built up the courage to look his otherwise cheery aunt in the eyes again, a flash of fear struck him at the murderous look in hers. A low growl exited her throat.

“Well,” she snapped, “I suppose there will be no more silly little attempts on our part to play Cupid.”

As quickly as it had started, her anger dissipated, and was replaced by a certain sadness. Her mouth raised just a fraction, into a tired little smile.

“ ’just thought that Zelds could do with something nice for once. We failed. It didn’t work.”

With that, she picked up her carpet bag and shuffled off up the stairs. Ambrose watched her go, now a lone silhouette in the entrance of their home.

Or so he thought. You waited until Ambrose had moodily trudged down to the embalming room before emerging from your spot in the broom closet. Sniffling a little from all the dust- those things hadn’t been flown for years, SO old fashioned- you felt a mix of emotion at what you had just heard. You hadn’t intended on becoming an audience to some type of scheme, and especially not one of which involved you.

At first, there was embarrassment. You hadn’t realised that your feelings were apparently so obvious! Paired with the fact that Zelda’s must have been too in order to warrant such a matchmaking scheme; along with that you had truly thought that you had done a superb job at keeping it all under wraps, you were left feeling a bit stupid. But then came the funny side of it all, imagining Hilda, Ambrose, and Sabrina sneaking about like the Pink Panther and holding secret meetings about your love life. And finally came the warmth, the realisation of exactly how much the Spellmans had grown to care for you- so much that they trusted you to love Zelda as much as they did.

The whole situation was entirely too much of an opportunity to just leave alone. Grinning with total delight and schemes cooking of your own, you rematerialised in Zelda’s study at the Academy. The loud CRACK that accompanied that particular piece of magic made the woman flinch. Her brow crinkled at the sight of you in front of her great oaken desk. She was a little taken aback, and (it delighted you even more) flustered to see you there.

“Y/n?”

“Zelda. I NEED to tell you what I just heard!”

A game was now afoot.

And your opponents weren’t finished yet either.

[joeahj]

Emotions

Emotions = events + beliefs about events not events alone that trigger distress, but events combined with our interpretations of them. best viewed and self-regulated when treated as points of data - uncertain results in life so figure out where deviation occurred and come to terms with where deviation occurred to resolve emotion. this relates to self-concept reorganisation, which describes people’s ability to change self’s mental picture(s?), like seeing self as independent person. Relationships can concretize with time in the story of one’s life that one is always authoring (stories are powerful in lives). Sense of self reorganisation process allows one to distance who one is from who one was. It’s the effect of repeatedly reflecting on one's experience and crafting a narrative, especially a narrative that includes the part of the story where one recovers. Reflection included regular check-in with emotional expression. It’s a system with clear similarities to lab-based observation where one could see self as subject; move emotions around as well as figure out what to do with emotions wanted and unwanted after laying emotions on table. Self-concept repair causes improvements in well-being. Not all feelings that can affect negatively is bad for one. While some negative emotions can be helpful to be avoided, other negative emotions—such as guilt or sadness— may be adaptive and help one change for the better when experienced in the appropriate setting. Feeling guilty when one has done something wrong can help one correct one’s behavior in the future and make the proper amends. Feeling sad about growing apart from a good friend can help one realize one still cares about that relationship. Understanding as opposed to avoiding conflict or suppressing feelings that affect negatively is key. These feelings that affect negatively are part of nature. Sighing is fundamental human survival behaviour. Sighing is associated with disappointment, defeat, frustration, boredom, and longing. Breathing begins to vary during the time preceding a sigh, changing in speed or shallowness. When breathing in one state for too long, the lungs become stiffer and less efficient in gas exchange. Intermittently adding a sigh to the normal pattern then stretches the lung's air sacs (alveoli). Sighing acts as a physical and mental reset. Sighing may give relief. Deep and measured breathing can counteract stress and anxiety. Good is not as good if one isn’t occasionally contrasting it with something bad. People need some emotional variety. People who are forcing themselves to feel positively all the time when it isn’t genuine may not reap the same benefits as those who are experiencing genuine emotions can affect positively. Experiencing a variety of emotions can be good for one’s mental and physical health. Variety is the spice of emotional life. It can be better for one’s overall happiness to feel emotions like anger at appropriate times, rather than seeking happiness no matter the situation. The outcome of better health is a good reason to enrich our emotional lives. Emotional diversity is the variety and abundance of emotions that can affect positively (like amusement, awe, and gratitude) and emotions that can affect negatively  (like anger, anxiety, and sadness). It can be measured through seeing the tendency for emotions that can affect positively and emotions that can affect negatively. Emotional diversity takes into account how many emotions people experience and how evenly distributed they are. People high in emotional diversity were less likely to be depressed than people high in emotions that affect positively alone. This was the case for all types of emotional diversity: positive (experiencing many different positive emotions), negative (many different negative emotions), and general (a mix of both). Emotional diversity is linked to better health. People who have more emotional diversity had less medication use, lower government health care costs, and fewer doctor visits and days in the hospital; had better diet, exercise, and smoking habits. Emotional diversity is a practically important metric for assessing the health of the human emotional ecosystem. Emotional diversity accounts for 1% of the variance in depression so it would be interesting to see future research on its links to subjective well-being and meaning. Looking after a diversity of emotions—positive or negative—can make us happier and healthier. Well-being isn’t about being cheerful all the time and avoiding sadness like the plague. Cultivating self-awareness and allowing oneself to express one’s authentic emotions can be beneficial. Branch out of one’s routine and do something new that might make one feel awe or pride; in tough situations, allow oneself to feel shame or guilt or jealousy rather than expected feelings (what one “should” feel?). Distinct personalities in different emotions have a role to play in one’s life, driving the story of one’s life forward and helping one to survive if managed productively.  The effect of emotional diversity on physical health was about as strong as the effects of emotion that can affect positively or emotion that can affect positively alone. Low emotional diversity can be related to trouble identifying one’s emotions and tending to feel generic things like “happy” or “bad.”; limiting to only feeling content for reasons such as being taught that it’s not dignified to be joyful; sticking with anger for reasons such as being taught that sadness is wimpy; noticing only anxious feelings for reasons such as thinking one is an anxious person.

Is there a reason why people have the capacity for so many emotions? Could emotional diversity play a role in well-being, beyond simple levels of emotions that can affect positively and emotions that can affect negatively? Emotions are not identical for a reason? It can be possible to gratitude-journal too much, losing gratitude’s positive effects in routine. Obsessive emotions include hatred, unproductive jealousy, unreciprocated or passionate love and complicated grief. Like other forms of obsession, obsessive emotions increase the propensity for aggressive and violent actions. This can be related to when love becomes infiltrated by hate. Obsessive emotions are indistinct. These emotions are usually characterized by obsessive thinking and compulsive behaviour. Obsessive emotions frequently leads to peculiar or violent behaviour. Like hatred, unreciprocated love and unproductive jealousy can lead to homicide. These behaviours can cause generalised anxiety, panic attacks and obsessive suicide thoughts towards the person these behaviours are targeted at.   The neurochemical profile underlying the obsessive emotions has strong resemblances to the profile underlying obsessive-compulsive disorder. This profile is characterized by low levels of the feel-good chemical serotonin leading to the obsession, and high levels of the motivation and reward dopamine associated with the compulsive action(s). Anxiety: Excessively high standards isn’t good being motivated by fear of failure. Perfectionism has to allow one freedom to be themselves. The higher the emotional distress, the greater the indication of maladaptive perfectionism involvement. Fear: survival evolutionary mechanism Hatred: There is a thin line between love and hate because the same brain circuitry is involved in both extreme emotions. Hate retains a semblance of rationality though. Large parts of the cerebral cortex – associated with judgement and reasoning – become deactivated during love, whereas only a small area is deactivated in hate. In romantic love, the lover is often less critical and judgemental regarding the loved person. It is more likely that in the context of hate the hater may want to exercise judgement in calculating moves to the hated person. Scientists studying the physical nature of hate have found that some of the nervous circuits in the brain responsible for hate are same as those used during the feeling of romantic love. The findings from a study investigating neural circuits that become active when people look at a photograph of someone they say they hate which found the "hate circuit" sharing something common with the “love circuit” could explain why both hate and romantic love can result in similar acts of extreme behaviour – both heroic and evil. The “hate circuit” includes parts of the brain called the putamen and the insula, found in the sub-cortex of the organ. The putamen is involved in the perception of contempt and disgust; may be part of the motor system involved in movement and action. Significantly, the putamen and the insula are also both activated by romantic love. The putamen could also be involved in the preparation of aggressive acts in a romantic context, as in situations when a rival presents a danger. The insula may be involved in responses to distressing stimuli. The viewing of both a loved and a hated face may constitute such a distressing signal. Love and hate are intimately linked within the human brain, according to a study that has discovered the biological basis for the two intense emotions.   Hate is a passion that is of equal interest to love. The activity of some of these brain structures in response to a hated face is proportional in strength to the declared intensity of hate, thus allowing the subjective state of hate to be objectively quantified. This finding may have implications in criminal cases. Hate can an consuming passion like love. People have times when they strongly dislike the people they love a lot although some of them may not realise this. When someone one loves hurts us emotionally, love can become infiltrated by hate. This happens more often when a person is close to us. One type of action may trigger hate when committed by a person close to us, whereas the same type of action may only trigger anger or annoyance when a person is not close to us. This is because we expect more from those close to us. Feelings that can affect negatively are bound to be more intense when the partner repeatedly (or occasionally only once) inflicts unjustified harm upon one. Those closest to one, such as romantic partners, invoke strong feelings on both ends of the spectrum—some days, thoughts of one’s romantic partners may leave one awash with love and admiration; other days, one may feel dislike or even repulsion. Hate can rapidly replace love when the love becomes too heartbreaking and complicated. The hate that infiltrates love can be seen as “unhappy, disappointed, embittered love,” as philosopher Andreas Dorschel puts it. People sometimes mismanage hatred felt so strongly towards loved ones that they are prepared to take revenge of the most gruesome kind or behave in incredibly spiteful ways towards the loved one who wounded them. These people don’t stop loving the hated person who left them behind. One abhor former loves because one takes an interest in them. These loves still matter to one, occupying one’s thoughts and maybe dreams. One wanted them to be in one’s life like they used to but they had their own reasons for leaving one behind with unfulfilled dreams and hopes for the future. One could then feel a painful hatred toward them. One could have a personal hatred for a previously loved person who has frustrated one. Hatred is an obsessive emotion. Indifference does not play a part in hate’s indistinctness. When one no longer loves someone, one doesn’t care about them. Indifference is a kind of numbness that likely sparks an absence of action as opposed to a reaction. It’s normal to love and hate significant others. Even when people reported highly positive feelings and very low negative feelings towards significant others they like very much, people hold both positive and negative feelings toward the ones they love at an implicit level. People feel both positively and negatively toward those they love. This love/hate dynamic is a normal part of close relationships. Feeling negatively towards one’s partner does not mean that one is doing something wrong or that one is in the wrong relationship. Hating one’s partner in the moment does not mean that one doesn’t love them a lot. Positive and negative as two ends of a spectrum - feeling more positively toward one’s partner meaning one feels less negatively toward the partner and vice versa could apply to one particular moment but cannot be representative of relationship’s complex nature. One’s feelings towards partners can range wildly from moment to moment. That can be part of the wild ride of sharing one’s life with another complex human being. Overwhelmingly positive pictures posted on social media of friends’ happy relationships are half the story at best. People’s implicit feelings toward significant others that they reported disliking a lot are changeable. These significant others are disliked people who played an important role in people’s lives, such as exes or estranged parents. People hold some positive views of these significant others even as people profess their dislike of them. This is even if people may not be able to admit at a conscious level that they hold some positive views of these significant others even as they profess their dislike of them. Love is complicated.   There is such a thing as too much hate. Having too much negativity can be harmful. Make love stronger than hate by keeping the love/hate ratio positive. Immature power-loving people who create trouble can be driven by hatred of a particular identity group these people see as similar to their bullies or the ones they envied. Sadness: despair = suffering - meaning extremes of anguish need not destroy the soul if a sense of purpose, and of choosing the meaning of one's experiences, remains. One who has a why can bear with almost any how. Jealousy: can be one of the major triggers of domestic violence. Jealousy can happen in love. It is hard to determine where the fine line is between jealousy and emotional abuse. Jealous behavior can be abusive regardless of whether the jealousy is justified or not. Jealousy becomes obsessive, unproductive and giving potential to be abusive (can be emotionally abusive) when it is a reaction to remote or non-existing threats - more than a reaction to actual threats to the relationship. Pain: suffering = pain x resistance