The First Time Yelena Sees Maria Working Diligently Beside Melina As They Cook Supper Yelena Laughs So

The first time Yelena sees Maria working diligently beside Melina as they cook supper Yelena laughs so hard she falls out of her chair. Natasha can’t keep from chuckling along with her little sisters frantic laughter. “What’s so funny?” She asks with a grin.

Yelena lays curled on the ground, grabbing her stomach, trying desperately to catch her breath. “You,” was all Yelena could get out before she gasps out another giggle. “You married mom!” She finally shrieks as she breaks into hysterical laughter, as though saying it out loud just made it funnier.

Natasha looks over her shoulder with an indignant frown. Maria looks nothing like Melina. Maria looks only superficially like Melina. They are both lean women with dark hair. She sees them standing beside each other, both frowning down at something unseen on the counter. Maria gestures at something and Melina nods briskly. An action Natasha has seen Maria make nearly daily at work. Maria brushes her bangs back impatiently, more focus on her work than her hair. Exactly like Melina would do when pouring over the reports Alexi brought back. As though cued both tilt their heads in synchronization just slightly to the right, seeking a better angle to consider the task ahead of them. Natasha’s green eyes widen. “I married mom,” she whispers horrified. Her words nearly drown out by Yelena’s ongoing laughter.

A warm hand knocks against Natasha’s shoulder so hard she she nearly falls out of her own chair. “Yes!” Alexi cheers happily. “You did not see this?” Natasha flushes at the question. Alexi noticing something before her is just embarrassing. Even if he was technically a spy. “I told you! You make good choice. Pick nice girl. Your mom is best girl, but your wife is close.”

Natasha does, in fact, vividly remember him saying exactly that when he first met Maria. This realization adds a layer of context that Natasha did not want. “Oh god, why did I marry mom?” Natasha’s still too horrified to think clearly.  Alexi’s good natured laugh overwhelms Yelena’s high pitched giggling. “It is rule of life. You marry one parent. You become the other. My beautiful girl is just like me.” He pounds his chest with pride and Natasha uses the freedom to sink beneath the table in shame.  Yelena’s also laying on the floor, relearning how to breath. Natasha pokes her, smile licking around her lips. “Careful,” Natasha threatens, “you might end up marrying mom too.”

Yelena’s own eyes widen in horror. “I will never!” She vows.

Natasha grins teasingly and arches an eyebrow. “We’ll see.”

***

One year later when Yelena shyly introduces her sister to her beloved Natasha mouth drops open in shock.  “What? What is wrong?” Yelena asks defensively. “Kate Bishop is pretty cool. Don’t try to play me.”

Natasha shakes her head. “No, she is. She’s pretty much an awkward puppy in people form. I just didn’t realize you were so against marry mom that you’re trying to marry dad.”

Yelena’s look of slow dawning horror is worth every second of teasing Natasha survived for the past year.

So Maria and Melina similar-- similar enough for Yelena to make a joke about Natasha dating her mother.

I’m now imagining a little mermaid AU for Hawkeye where Kate’s the human prince(ss) who jumped on a burning ship for a dog and rammed a shipwreck into a 150-foot-tall magic sea monster (Dreykov) for Yelena. 

I hope im not just a blog you follow but also the only person with 100% correct opinions about the little mermaid

There’s this book I love about wealth and overcoming inherited shame about having/wanting wealth. It’s called “Thou Shall Prosper” by Rabbi Daniel Lapin. It changed how I view wealth and money.

Dave Ramsey (The Ramsey Show - podcast) talks a bit about investing and his number one advice is never never invest in something you don’t understand. Which, makes intuitive sense but also I’m surprised how often I ask people why they are investing in a thing or why they forecast certain returns with it and they just don’t know. If you can’t explain it to someone else it’s probably best not to put money you need into it. It doesn’t have to be a complicated explanation. Just, like, I plug this cord into the electrical socket and it creates pictures of light and air vibrations of sound to make movies. The bare bones. 

The Motley Fool (https://www.fool.com) has great articles and also a rating system for all sorts of stock. It’ll even let you play select a few to track. 

You really don’t need to research and find hundreds of good stocks. You need enough that if one tanks you’ve spread your investing enough not to tank with it. So enough to feel secure when the stock market is going though a period of insecurity. Which happens. All the time. It’s unavoidable (especially in the short term). Which is why you want to use money that you can park for 5+ years. And also why you want to look at 10+ years performance on anything you do invest it. 

do you have any resources on how to invest? im thinking about getting started but i dont have much financial knowledge and the investing subreddits are not very beginner friendly. and i kind of feel torn about it because on one hand i have more left-leaning politics but i still want to play the game...

I don't know any good investment resources off the top of my head. My knowledge comes from classes I took in college.

I know that some of my friends have, no joke, bought the "Investing for Dummies" book just to get a sense of things and found it helpful.

My beginner friendly advice would be to avoid day trading. Start by getting a free investor account - you can do this with Charles Schwab.

If you don't want to be super stressed about it, and I know it don't, pursue long-term low risk investments. That means you're not likely to lose a lot of money, but you have to keep your money in them a long time to see real returns, I'm talking a decade plus.

Look into savings bonds; the U.S. treasury sells two types of bonds, EE bonds and I bonds. I'll let you do your own research there.

Look into low-risk mutual funds. A bunch of options there. Mutual funds are professionally managed investment funds that poola the money of many investors together, and uses that to purchase securities.

Look into Dividend Stocks. They still carry risk, of course, but they eliminate some of it because they pay cash on some earnings as they go.

Put the rest of your money into a high-yield savings account. Your money should always, always be accruing interest to work for you.

That's my at a glance investing advice.

When I was 17 my appendix ruptured because I thought I was just having period cramps and didn’t go to the hospital so don’t tell me PMS symptoms are no big deal

How to write kids, if you don't remember being one or haven't lived with any

1. Kids never feel as small as you see them. A three year old thinks a one year old is a baby and a six year old is grown up. A six year old thinks a three year old is a baby and a twelve year old is an adult. Age is about perspective. One year is a huge age difference to a little kid.

2. Little kids might not be conscious of their physical limitations, but they can still be frustrated by them. A seven year old might see an adult do something relatively simple, like draw a straight line or perfectly crack an egg, and try to do the same thing, only to be frustrated when it doesn't work.

Imagine suddenly having an injury that makes a skill you use every day become difficult- you feel you should be able to do the thing, and you understand the thing should be easy for you, but it isn't. It can be immensely frustrating to have a brain that grasps a concept that language or fine motor skills haven't caught up to.

3. You know when you forget a word, and have to make something up on the fly to describe the word? That's pretty much exactly what learning your first language is like.

You know what you intend, but you don't have a way to express it, and it can move you to tears with frustration when everyone around you is suggesting the wrong thing, or seems completely certain they understand what you mean, and they don't.

You don't have a word for "Later"? You might try saying "next time", or, "after", or, "before tomorrow".

This might result in saying, "Are we going to the park next time?", "Are we going to the park before tomorrow?", or, "Are we going to the park after?", all of which can result in different answers.

4. Kids feel like adults are a different species. They don't get why we do certain things, and they don't understand why we don't want to run around with them all the time.

If sitting still is boring, coffee tastes bitter, and long conversations only happen with weird-smelling strangers who talk to them like they're stupid, then they truly will not understand why anyone would *want* to be left to have coffee with a friend without welcome distractions to make it bearable.

Aren't you bored? You aren't doing anything. How could you possibly be stimulated without any food or toys or music or anything? Why don't you just leave? Do you *have* to be there, the way you had to go to work? Adults are weird.

5. Children have complex social relationships that are just as varied as yours.

A room full of third graders might look like indiscriminate chaos to an adult, but pick a well connected kid, and they'll tell you that Megan is the fashion icon who can do hair really well, Thomas is the athlete, Gray gets mean when he has to share so nobody wants to play with him, Paisley can't read and the boys make fun of her for it so don't make her work in a group with Anthony, Dillon put a bug in their food once so they'll never trust him again, and Matthew's parents let him watch family guy so he says bad words and makes grown-up jokes that make other kids uncomfortable.

You don't see this stuff because you aren't inside the society. They are, and they do.

6. Time. Moves. So. Slow. Five minutes really does feel like half an hour. Sit still for five minutes? That's like you sitting in a waiting room at the DMV for an hour. Wouldn't you get annoyed and impatient? They haven't learned to hide their irritation yet. That's really the only difference.

7. "Reading in your head" requires understanding that you have a Voice, which people can hear, and Thoughts, which are audible only to yourself. This can be a difficult concept to grasp. If a kid is reading out loud, and you tell them to read quietly, there's a good chance they're going to whisper or mouth the words instead of going totally silent the way you might. Splitting the self into multiples like "Internal monologue VS public perception" or "What I look like VS how I think I look" is alien and bizarre. If a kid thinks they look like a Dragon and you laugh at them? Ouch. They might be mad for a while.

8. Repetitive chores make no sense when your awareness of time doesn't extend beyond a week or so. Why should I wash my blankets? They don't look dirty and I don't smell anything bad. Blankets don't get dirty unless you put dirt on them. If you put a blanket in a washer, you can't use that blanket AT ALL the ENTIRE TIME it's being cleaned. That might be an hour, but it will *feel* like a week. And you have to do that every two weeks?? That's overkill. Why even bother?

9. Kids have opinions about adults. They will have a sense about whether an adult is "real-kind" or "fake-kind". An adult who listens respectfully to what they have to say, asks thoughtful questions, and takes their concerns seriously? That's a good adult. An adult that oversimplifies their struggles, ignores their complex social rules, and gives bullshit advice like "just walk away from bullies" and "turn your chores into a fun game"? That's not a trustworthy adult. That's an Adult™. An Adult™ doesn't consider them to be a real human being with thoughts and emotions. An Adult™ sees them as an inferior, amusing pet. And they will actively sabotage An Adult™ like that.

10. Emotions are physical at a young age. Joy might make their body buzz until they can't help but wiggle or jump around. Sadness might be a huge physical pain in their throat and heart. Everything they experience is still relatively new to them, so there is very little frame of reference to decide if this is a "big hurt that will last forever and ever and never go away", or a "small hurt, that can be fixed easily and won't matter in five minutes". If someone lies to them about getting a cookie, that very well might be all the betrayal of your best friend sleeping with your husband.

Fortunately, a child probably won't be able to burn all your clothes in the yard without your notice.

You know what fantasy writing needs? Working class wizards.

A crew of enchanters maintaining the perpetual flames that run the turbines that generate electricity, covered in ash and grime and stinking of hot chilies and rare mushrooms used for the enchantments

A wizard specializing in construction, casting feather fall on every worker, and enchanting every hammer to drive nails in straight, animating the living clay that makes up the core of the crane

An elderly wizard and her apprentice who transmute fragile broken objects. From furniture, to rotten wood beams, to delicate jewelry

A battle magician, trained with only a few rudimentary spells to solve a shortage of trained wizards on the front who uses his healing spells to help folks around town

Wizarding shops where cheery little mages enchant wooden blocks to be hammered into the sides of homes. Hammer this into the attic and it will scare off termites, toss this in the fire and clean your chimney, throw this in the air and all dust in the room gets sucked up

Wizard loggers who transmute cut trees into solid, square beams, reducing waste, and casting spells to speed up regrowth. The forest, they know, will not be too harsh on them if the lost tree’s children may grow in its place

Wizard farmers who grow their crops in arcane sigils to increase yield, or produce healthier fruit

Factory wizards who control a dozen little constructs that keep machines cleaned and operational, who cast armor to protect the hands of workers, and who, when the factory strikes for better wages, freeze the machines in place to ensure their bosses can’t bring anyone new in.

Anyway, think about it.