Audio transcript : Hamster balls are like so dangerous for small animals. You know why? Because like, they can't extend their back properly, so their back is like thi-- (cuts off abruptly as the creature in the hamster ball is revealed to be a crab; pauses. The following is said with an affectionate tone like one uses when speaking of a cute animal:) Well, he can't break his spine 'cause he don't have a spine.
people will really come into kink spaces and say you can't forcefem women like there wasn't a feature length movie about an elderly gay man forcefemming a woman as part of scheme to thwart an elaborate assassination attempt before the killer even determined their target
Here's the cat burglar. She wears comfy clothes and has zero social skills. She has sex appeal but only if you're into a very specific type of woman, and crucially she has zero idea she has it. She probably doesn't know what an innuendo is.
Here's the hacker. He's a Black nerd, and also the most moral character of the bunch. He's a nerd but also not socially awkward; in fact, he's the second best at grifting, right after the person who's been doing it for decades.
Here's the muscle. In his heart of hearts, he is a chef. He is tough and manly but he uses that to look out for the working class and children and everyone else the system leaves behind. He's feared by politicians and he reminds his friend to tip the delivery person.
Here's the femme fatale. She's over forty years old, and she's the one seducing the mark. She's the heart of the team. Her calling is to be a director. She loves attending her own funeral.
Here's the mastermind. He's the only one who doesn't start out as a career criminal. He manipulates his own crew, kills two people after promising them he won't, and takes deals behind their back. He was in seminary school.
You're a little chaos gremlin.
Happy Lowman thinks its adorable. Not that he'd ever tell you that.
The first time Happy Lowman saw you nearly get arrested over a lawn flamingo, he decided you were either the most annoying woman he’d ever met or the most entertaining.
Maybe both.
It happened outside a gas station twenty miles outside Charming.
You were standing on the hood of your beat-up truck, trying to rescue a plastic pink flamingo from the station roof with a broom while the owner screamed at you in Spanish and two deputies rolled into the parking lot with lights flashing.
Happy had been pumping gas beside Tig’s bike.
Tig was already laughing hard enough to wheeze.
“What the hell is she doin’?” Kozik asked.
“No clue,” Happy muttered.
Then you looked down from the roof, eyes wide and completely unbothered by the cops.
“You!” you shouted, pointing directly at Happy like you knew him. “Tall scary biker man. Catch me.”
Happy blinked once.
Before he could answer, you jumped.
Straight off the damn hood.
Happy caught you automatically because apparently his survival instincts had short-circuited around pretty women with no self-preservation.
The broom smacked him in the shoulder. The flamingo bounced off Tig’s chest. One deputy shouted, “HEY—”
And you grinned at Happy like this was all perfectly normal.
“Thanks, baby.”
Baby.
Happy Lowman—killer, enforcer, terrifying Son of Anarchy—stood there holding a stranger while Tig laughed so hard he almost collapsed.
That should’ve been his warning sign.
Instead, he watched you sprint toward your truck yelling, “YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE,” before peeling out of the parking lot with one of the deputies chasing after you for approximately thirty feet before giving up.
Happy stared after the truck.
Tig slapped his shoulder.
“Oh, you’re fucked.”
Three weeks later, you walked into Teller-Morrow carrying a raccoon.
Alive.
Juice nearly screamed.
“Why is it LOOKING at me like that?”
“He likes you,” you said.
“I don’t want him to like me!”
You ignored him entirely, walking deeper into the garage while the raccoon sat in your arms like a spoiled cat.
Happy looked up from the bike he’d been working on.
There you were.
Like some kind of curse.
Your grin widened immediately when you spotted him.
“Scary biker man!”
Happy grunted.
“Got a name.”
“Yeah, but scary biker man feels more personal.”
You dropped into the chair beside him like you belonged there.
Happy glanced at the raccoon.
“You know that thing’s got diseases, right?”
“He has feelings too.”
“It hissed at me.”
“He’s nervous.”
The raccoon hissed again.
Happy stared at it.
It stared back.
Then, horrifyingly, the damn thing crawled from your arms into Happy’s lap.
The entire garage went silent.
Nobody breathed.
Happy Lowman had stabbed people for less than touching him unexpectedly.
But instead of throwing the animal across the room, he just looked down at the raccoon sitting on his thigh.
Then at you.
You were trying not to laugh.
“You serious right now?”
“He likes scary biker men too.”
Tig walked by, took one look at the situation, and immediately started cackling.
“Oh, he likes her.”
“Shut up,” Happy said automatically.
But his eyes stayed on you.
And that was the problem.
Because you were chaos wrapped in pretty smiles and scraped knees and impulsive decisions.
You talked too much.
You climbed things you shouldn’t.
You had zero fear response.
You stole Happy’s cigarettes and replaced them with candy cigarettes once just to “see if he noticed.”
(He noticed.)
You painted tiny smiley faces on the handles of his knives.
(He definitely noticed.)
You convinced Half-Sack to help you put googly eyes on every gun in the clubhouse.
Clay nearly had an aneurysm.
Happy found you hiding under the pool table afterward, laughing so hard tears rolled down your cheeks.
“You gonna rat me out?” you whispered.
Happy crouched down slowly.
The clubhouse noise muffled around you both.
“You dumb as hell.”
“Yeah, but you like me.”
Happy’s jaw tightened.
Because the worst part was—
You were right.
Nobody understood it.
Not Tig.
Not Chibs.
Definitely not Jax.
“How the fuck did YOU end up with a girl like that?” Jax asked one night.
Happy sat at the bar drinking whiskey while you ran through the clubhouse wearing one of his hoodies and waving a roman candle like a weapon.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”
You shrieked triumphantly as Juice yelled, “SHE’S GONNA BURN THE CLUBHOUSE DOWN.”
“She said she knew what she was doing!” Half-Sack defended.
“She lit the bathroom trashcan on fire last week!”
“That was one time!”
Happy watched you dodge Tig trying to confiscate the fireworks.
You were laughing so hard you could barely breathe.
And Christ.
Happy was gone for you.
Completely.
He knew it in quiet moments.
Like when you crawled into his lap without asking.
When you fell asleep with your face pressed against his chest.
When you patched up his knuckles after fights without flinching at the blood.
Most people feared Happy.
You never did.
Not because you didn’t understand what he was.
You did.
You’d seen the violence.
Seen the blood on his hands.
Seen the coldness in him.
But you looked at him anyway.
Like there was something worth loving underneath all that brutality.
That terrified him more than any gun ever had.
The first time Happy realized he’d kill for you without hesitation happened outside a bar in Stockton.
Not club business.
Just some drunk asshole grabbing your wrist too hard when you told him no.
Happy had been across the parking lot.
One second he saw you laughing with Chibs.
The next, some man had his hands on you.
Everything in Happy went black.
The guy barely had time to turn before Happy slammed him into a car hard enough to dent the door.
People started yelling.
The man swung once.
Happy broke his nose.
Then his jaw.
Then kept going.
Because nobody touched what was his.
Nobody.
“Happy.”
Your voice.
Soft.
Close.
Happy froze mid-swing, breathing hard.
Blood covered his knuckles.
The man whimpered underneath him.
You crouched beside Happy carefully.
Not scared.
Never scared.
You touched his face lightly.
“Baby.”
Happy’s eyes lifted to yours.
The rage inside him eased instantly.
Just for you.
“C’mon,” you murmured. “He’s learned his lesson.”
Happy looked at the man one last time.
Then stood.
You took his bloody hand without hesitation.
Like it didn’t matter what he’d done.
Like it didn’t change how you looked at him.
Happy stared down at your intertwined fingers the entire walk back to the bikes.
“You love her.”
Happy glanced toward Piney without reacting.
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Bullshit.”
Piney smirked around his cigarette.
“She’s turned you soft.”
Happy snorted.
Then immediately looked toward the clubhouse doors because he heard you laughing outside.
Piney caught it.
That tiny shift.
That instinctive attention.
“Yep,” the older man said. “You got it bad.”
Happy flipped him off.
But later that night, when you stumbled sleepily into his room wearing one of his shirts and nothing else, he understood exactly how screwed he was.
You climbed into bed beside him without speaking.
Warm skin.
Sleepy eyes.
Absolute trust.
Happy wrapped an arm around your waist automatically.
You hummed happily against his chest.
“You know,” you mumbled, half asleep, “you’re kinda terrifying.”
Happy huffed softly.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
You tilted your head up.
“But you’re my terrifying.”
Something in his chest twisted painfully.
You said things like that so casually.
Like you didn’t realize what they did to him.
Happy brushed hair away from your face slowly.
You smiled at him.
Soft.
Real.
God.
He’d spent most of his life believing he wasn’t built for this.
For tenderness.
For love.
Men like him didn’t get soft endings.
Didn’t get girls who looked at them like home.
But you kept crawling under his skin anyway.
Turning the darkest parts of him quiet.
The proposal wasn’t romantic.
Not technically.
It happened because you accidentally adopted a goat.
Happy came home to find the animal standing on the kitchen table eating tortilla chips.
He stared at it.
The goat stared back.
You appeared from the hallway wearing his flannel and looking guilty.
“So.”
Happy pointed at the goat.
“No.”
“He was abandoned.”
“No.”
“He likes you.”
“No.”
The goat bleated.
Happy pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You can’t keep bringin’ home random shit.”
You crossed your arms.
“You kept me.”
Silence.
Happy looked at you.
Really looked at you.
At your ridiculous grin.
At the woman who filled every dark corner of his life with noise and warmth and trouble.
You’d become home so gradually he hadn’t even noticed it happening.
Until suddenly the idea of losing you felt impossible.
Happy stepped closer.
You blinked.
“What?”
He pulled a ring from his kutte pocket.
Your mouth dropped open.
“What the hell?”
Happy shrugged once.
“Been carryin’ it around.”
“For how long?!”
“Couple months.”
“Happy!”
“You gonna marry me or keep yellin’?”
You stared at him for a full three seconds before launching yourself at him hard enough to nearly knock him backward.
“Yes!”
The goat screamed.
You screamed louder.
Somewhere outside, Tig yelled, “WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?”
Happy buried his face against your neck while you laughed breathlessly into his shoulder.
And for maybe the first time in his entire life, Happy Lowman felt something dangerously close to peace.
Not because life got softer.
Not because the world stopped being violent.
But because somehow, against all odds, a tiny chaos gremlin with terrible impulse control had looked at the monster everyone feared—
This is a reminder for those who handmake Christmas presents that now is not too early to start. It may in fact be a good time to start if you have a lot to make/your craft takes a long time. You should maybe start it now, whether that's brainstorming or actually doing the crafts!
The 72-year-old British actor also had roles in shows including Merlin and Little Britain.
Really sad news, everyone.
Rupert Giles, you phenomenal character. Anthony Head, you incredible actor, who brought such subtlety to this role. At times dark, at times comedic, always hot.
dead wife montage but it's a henchman reminiscing about da boss after he got put six feet under. picking flowers before hiding the bodies, wiping cocaine from your nose after a big night, that long drive down the beach to find the bookie who squealed. where did the days go
Years ago back when I worked in cubicle land, we were hiring junior software developers. They didn’t have to have a ton of experience, just a willingness to learn, and some demonstration of their software skills. Like: show me a program you wrote (any language) or a web site you designed. Anything.
And there was this one guy I talked with who seemed super sharp, but had virtually zero experience writing software. When it came time to do the show-n-tell part of the interview he whips out his laptop, brings up a website, and spins it around to show me what he made.
A website of tiny ceramic frogs.
Not for sale. Just… all these ceramic frogs, organized into categories. Frogs on bicycles, frogs with hats, frogs sitting on lily pads. It was a virtual museum of ceramic frogs in web form.
I scrolled through his online collection of frogs, slightly baffled.
“This is your website?” I asked finally.
“Yep!”
“You coded this yourself?” I popped into view-source mode and poked around some incredibly well-formatted, well-commented html. I nodded slowly. This guy was meticulous.
“Yep!”
“So… where’d all the frogs come from?”
“I made those too,” he says, beaming.
And while I’m processing this he rummages in his bag and pulls out a little ceramic frog working at a computer terminal. He places it on the table before us, next to the laptop.
“And THIS one,” he says, “I made for you! As a thank you for the interview.”
It was adorable. I hired him on the spot. I mean, why not? Worst case he’d wash out in 90 days and we’d hire somebody else. He turned out to be one of the best developers on our team.
And yes, his cubicle was loaded with ceramic frogs.
alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.
we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)
please rb for larger sample size!
Question 1/3
What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?
I feel like I need to share this because idk if Europeans are familiar with the presence of Aldi in the US, but at least especially in my area they’ve been growing a lot recently. Like Aldi bought out some local failing grocery chains where I live (Louisiana) and have opened Aldis in all these somewhat rural communities and small towns, which for the record I’m fine with
But as a result of this they are advertising a lot more in my area and also in many cases, the people in these areas have never been confronted with Aldi or any European grocery store. So the ads that Aldi is pushing out to its new US customer base feature a cowboy shopping at Aldi who is explaining to new Aldi customers how Aldi works. Like this cowboy is explaining you gotta put a quarter in the shopping cart and why there are very little name brands. A cowboy is how they want to reach their American customer base. They gave us a cowboy