#re upload because I decided to be brave and draw her hand

[aprilrose-art]

Sketchy painting of the monster from Lisa Frankenstein ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🔥

[sanoiro]

Lucifer Season 2  Extras: (Transcript)

 I’m not going to give you the link of this video. The issue here is that such videos are deleted once they get too much attention. Thus trying to protect the account and the uploader I’m not going to post the video here. Also one more note, I get that you are excited about the show but I’ll not deal with juvenile vulture tendencies in this fandom. I have seen it and it’s quite disturbing.  And so it begins a really long post.... (Google will not be your friend by the way)

Ellis Tom - Lucifer Morningstar

German Lauren - Chloe Decker

Ildy Modrovich - Executive Producer/Writer

Henderson Joe - Executive Producer/Writer

Philip Cousineau - Author, “Once and Future Myths”

Garcia Aimee - Ella Lopez

Alejandro Kevin - Dan Espinoza

ABOUT L.A.  • Ellis: Los Angeles is the epicentre of the entertainment industry, so this is a classic place for people who want to go and pretend to be someone else.

• Garcia: You can be a DJ in the club, and the next day you are already on the billboard.

• German: It ... you know, as a place where you can re-discover yourself.

• Henderson: It's sex, drugs, rock'n'roll.

• Alejandro: What better place than Los Angeles?

• Henderson: Underneath it, you’ve got greed, you’ve got desire. You’ve got murder. You’ve got this just this strange underbelly of Los Angeles. This combination of glitzy top and gritty underbelly is a lot of what helps make Los Angeles not only the city it is, but the perfect place for Lucifer.

• Ildy: One of the biggest themes of Lucifer is duality. The dar always has a light, which is what appealed to Lucifer about coming to Los Angeles. 

• Henderson: It's a city where the devil can go any path, be any person.

• Ildy He is supposed to be the worst villain of all time. And there is somebody who also wants to be forgiven, who also wants to be understood and loved. I think it goes hand in hand with Los Angeles. What you see is not always what you get.

• Phil: California is significant. It is the end of the world, is a kind of paradise, which is a beautiful old Arabic (PERSIAN!!!) word, that means: "A walled garden."  So it’s always had the mythology of being dreamlike. It’s is a world of beauty. It’s is a world of fantasy.

• German: No matter where you came from or what your circumstances are, there is this red-coloured glasses opportunity, where it presents itself as a place where you can go and try and reach your hopes and dreams.

• Phil: Every artistic city throughout history has had a magnetic draw to it. Painters, sculptors, artists of all kinds went to Athens, Paris, Rome, New York and then Los Angeles. These are all "edge" cities. These are all places where you can gaze out at water and transform and reinvent yourself.

• Henderson: It's a city of rethinking. This is a city where you can be whatever you wanna be.

• Ellis: I must say: when I first got to Los Angeles, I thought it was really ugly. (Chuckles). The architecture leaves a lot to be desired. But then you realise it’s not about that. People are living, how they wanna live, and that's what that city is about.

• Alejandro: I come from a really small town in West Texas, landed in Canoga Park. And when I came here I saw palm trees and I thought: "Yes, this is LA, this is the life."

• Garcia: Coming from the Midwest, Los Angeles was a big city. Everyone had an agenda. Everyone had it out for you. I came out there thinking that I was literally going into the devil’s lair.

• Ildy: I went to UCLA. Go Bruins. I remember walking up the steps to the quad area. I remember thinking, "I have arrived in nirvana."

• German: I went to college at USC. Met a friend who knew a manager, who is still my manager, and called my dad just before my senior year. My dad said: "Okay, I'll either pay for school and you'll stay at school, or I will give you nothing, and you are on your own, but I believe in you and good luck!" (Laughs)

• Henderson: I moved out here 15 years ago, trying to figure out who I wanted to be, I tried to reinvent myself as a kid from Iowa who’s gonna be a screenwriter. That line "Where else would I go?" was one of the first lines of dialogue I wrote on Lucifer. Um, and it's partly because I was trying to wrap my brain around who the character was. What I think unconsciously Lucifer is doing is exploring who he is, in this place where you can be anybody.

ABOUT LUCIFER:

• Ildy: Lucifer is unaware that he really wants to reinvent himself.

• Ellis: He believes that everything he has done thus far has been part of his Dad’s grand plan. He’s always playing a part in his Dad's play. What his Dad has decided to do, Lucifer has to do.

• Phil: Lucifer was God’s favourite angel. We need to honour our fathers, but on the other hand, we have to express ourselves, and it is painful when we do (it). What’s the pain? It’s the pain of separation. You do not fit anywhere else, so you come to a world ... Lucifer comes to Los Angeles, to a world where everybody is reinventing themselves day and night. (Linda’s voice by the show: But here’s is the thing. When angels fall they also rise. All you have to do is to embrace who you are. Lucifer: So much punishment so little time.)

ABOUT DAN:

• Alejandro: Dan is going through a big transition in his life when he has to face the facts of moving on from his relationship with his wife and his daughter. He is taking a turn for himself to become a stronger individual, taking improv classes to work on his social skills and to understand who he is as a human being so that he can move forward in his life.

• Ildy: Dan might... Shh. He might be the writers’ room favourite. We love ourselves some Detective Douche. 

• Henderson: Dan eventually became someone who understands Lucifer, grows close to Lucifer. Dan has no idea what he's doing. He is trying to figure out where he stands in life. And them bonding over that mutual attempt at reinvention, I think really lets us pivot their relationship and get them closer to an unlikely buddy-cip duo, that we plan to explore much more in season three.

ABOUT MAZE:

• Ildy: Maze had a very specific job, which was taking care of Lucifer. When she came to Los Angeles, she was like, "Oh, this is another playground for us. We're going to bring Hell here on Earth." "That'll be fun." When she saw Lucifer find his own thing, she realised that she was living for Lucifer.

• Henderson: Season two is about her going: "You know what? I'm tired of protecting you from yourself. More importantly, I'm tired, of defining myself by you. Who is Ma`e outside of Lucifer?”  The answer started to come from her friendship with Linda. We knew her arc was gonna be to find herself. We didn’t know how fundamentally Linda would fit into that until we kept seeing how these two very different women helped each other get out of their own shells.

ABOUT LINDA:

• Ildy: If there is a word that describes Linda, it's "brave." She’s seen everybody’s bad sides, everybody’s ugly bits. She says: "You know what? I walked in with my eyes open, and I made this choice to be your friend, so I’ll take the good and the bad, and all that comes with it."  ABOUT AMENADIEL: • Ildy: I think that Amenadiel is a little bit of a cautionary tale. He thought he was the big responsible brother doing the right thing. And he was a little high and mighty. The truth is, he’s not.

• Henderson: He's weirdly like Lucifer. He is all about himself. He’s not looking outwards. He’s looking inward. And, really, what he’s looking at is: "Dad, what am I gonna have to do to make you love me?"

• Ildi: When he comes back in season two and he’s fallen, he’s starting to lose his wings, and he’s starting to lose his powers. He thinks that it’s God punishing him, but he’s punishing himself, which is something he realises by the end of season two.

ABOUT ELLA:

• Henderson: Ella is a character that I'd always wanted to bring as an archetype. And I think there is something so interesting about someone who believes in God, and then the characters all around her are proof that He actually exists, but she doesn’t know it.

• Garcia: She is a bundle of fun. She has no filter, no screener. She obviously, she works with dead bodies all the time. All the other detectives are like ... (Imitating robot) Like, so serious. And she just busts in speaking Klingon. I love her combination with Lucifer, because he is judgemental and she is so not. It’s Ella’s perfect coping mechanism of a city, because she is allowed to escape. And the best playmate is the Devil. ABOUT CHLOE AND LUCIFER: • Ellis: The relationship between Chloe and Lucifer is ... It is a very important part of our story. These two characters are most disarming of each other in each other’s presence.

• German: I think that Lucifer coming into her life was really the catalyst to even be aware of wanting to change (her life). I think she is a very hard worker, can be stoic. He affects her where she opens up and can let loose a little. 

• Ellis: Chloe offers something to Lucifer, and Lucifer offers something to Chloe, that no one else can. And for some reason, they can be completely themselves with each other.

• Ildy: I think that Lucifer is our eternal teenager. And Chloe is the eternal adult. She, I think, became an adult when she was 16. So she’s learning to have fun from Lucifer, and Lucifer’s learning how to have meaning in his life.

• German: In the second season, they fall in love, and they do not really know how to deal with it. He is always off with another girl or guy. So It’s not a natural relationship to fall into. But I think that there is great love there.

• Henderson: Be it love, be it friendship, be it trust, be it intimacy, there's always gonna be a bond between them.

ABOUT LOS ANGELES:

• Ildy: The Golden beaches and the palm trees and the twinkling lights of the city... It’s a beautiful place, an unreal place.

• Ellis: It's very easy to get tempted in various directions and lose yourself.

• Henderson: It's a city of “If you can do anything you want, do you do the wrong things? Do you choose the wrong desires?”  Some people might say: “Ugh... You went and lived a hedonist life in this city of sin”. Other people would be like “You had a really fun Tuesday.” What is embracing desire in a healthy way? What is embracing desire in an unhealthy way? And that’s the fascinating part of this city, and that’s the fascinating part about all the characters that are in our show because they represent all the different aspects of it. They are having a great time, but I think they’ll also find that maybe there’s more to life. And maybe you can do those things, and mayby there is also value in slowing down and looking around you and enjoying the people around you. And that duality, I think, is our show. 

• Ellis: When we’re talking about "It’s a city where you can reinvent yourself,” It’s also a city of lost souls, and it can be quite a lonely place for people if they haven’t got some kind of epicentre of love around them.

The End

[chrispavesic]

The temperature starts to change, the days grow shorter, and that means it’s fall subscription box time!

(Actually it was 90 degrees here yesterday. We are having some strange weather this year in the Midwest. But I digress …)

My FabFitFun box arrived this week, and it is jam-packed with fall goodies that I can’t wait to dig into, as well as a few items that can be used year-round.  Here they are in no particular order:

Mer-Sea & Co. Scarf – Blush Ombre

This scarf/wrap is very soft and a lovely color. It is billed as the ultimate companion – from the plane to the city streets and best of all, the washer and dryer. I like the fact that it can be machine washed, although I would use a mesh lingerie bag to protect the fringe.

It is 100% polyester and sells for $98 on the Mer-Sea & Co. web site.

On a side note–I requested the blush-colored Jetset Diaries Cable Knit Beanie to match the scarf ($49 on the Jetset Diaries web site.) You can see from the box photo that I received the black one.  Ah well …  I will be giving it away as a gift.

I received two products from Whish: The Mud Mask came with the original box.  The Almond Lip Scrub was an add-on. Their products are Leaping Bunny certified: Paraben free. Sulfate free. DEA and TEA free. Petrochemical free. Phthalate free. Naturally sourced with organic goodness. Made in the USA. I’m looking forward to trying these out.

The trèStiQue Matte Color & Shiny Balm Lip Crayon is a handy two-in-one product that features a creamy, lightweight lip color crayon with a natural matte finish, and a BB lip balm for added shine and moisture. It retails for $28.

The bright pink seems more like a spring/summer color to me, so I will probably save this until then. I like the fact that it is both a color and balm in one “crayon.” I might order a darker color just to try the formula this fall.

Private Party Gym Bag – Will Workout For Cupcakes: Because we all need motivation to work out.  Although my bag should say “Will workout for coffee!” The bag retails for $49.

My TagAlongs Hot & Cold Gel Pack

This type of hot/cold gel pack is nice to have on hand. Unlike the typical ice-packs I use in a cooler, this is flexible and can be shaped to fit wherever you need it. They do recommend wrapping a towel around the pack before applying it to your skin.

This retails for $15.

Imm Living Coxet Wire Heart Ceramic Jewelry Holder – Retail value $33.  This jewelry organizer is ceramic with a rose gold metal insert that stands and forms a heart-like shape. It measures 5 inches in diameter and it’s about 5 inches tall.

Deco Miami Lavender Cuticle Oil – Retail value $12.50. This is 8-FREE · TPHP-FREE · VEGAN · CRUELTY-FREE according to their web site.  The ingredients as listed: MINERAL OIL • ISOPROPYL MYRISTATE • CARTHAMUS TINCTORIUS (SAFFLOWER) SEED OIL • ARGANIA SPINOSA KERNEL OIL (ARGAN OIL) • BAMBUSA VULGARIS EXTRACT (BAMBOO EXTRACT) • TOCOPHERYL ACETATE (VITAMIN E) • ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C) • FRAGRANCE • VIOLET 2 (C.I. 60725)

It smells like lavender, but does not list lavender oil in the ingredients.

Molr Dental Club Organic Carbon + Coconut Teeth Whitening Powder and Toothbrush: I haven’t tried this product, but it looks interesting. This toothbrush set uses the power of activated charcoal to clean and whiten teeth as it binds teeth-staining pests like wine, coffee, and plaque. It retails for $43.95.

And finally another Add-On–Brazilian Kiss Cupuaçu Lip Butter Doce de Leite.

I have to admit this is the item I am most excited about in the box. I am a fan of the Bum Bum Cream–you can read about that in my post “Battle of the Bum Bum Creams.”

This is a lip butter infused with nourishing Cupuaçu, Açaí and Coconut Oil. It does not have a taste and smells heavenly. (It is so hard to describe but if they bottled this scent I would wear it as perfume.)

Verdict–was it worth it to me? Yes. There are enough items in the box that I will use to make it worth the $49 subscription.  And the items I will not use I will give as gifts.

That’s it for my box. Let me know what you think. Do you get the FabFitFun boxes? How did yours differ? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. All products have been purchased by me.

I would like to offer you a glimpse into Starter Zone, the first book of my new YA/LitRPG series, The Revelation Chronicles.

PROLOGUE

I was born into a world where silicone still ruled. Where the products of the earth outshone those of the sea. Integrated circuits ran all electronic equipment and scientists strove to make the conducting lines smaller and smaller. Silicon Valley tried, and failed, to make chips fast enough to upload human consciousness.

The Revelation came a few years later from the hydrologists. They designed a system that did not use silicone, but instead worked with water molecules. The hydrologists managed to imprint the consciousness of a human mind on a single drop of water.

The water was to be kept in self-contained, sealed aquariums—pure, undiluted, eternal—where virtual realities were constructed to meet every need and desire. All of human knowledge encoded and stored in literal pools of data and integrated with the drops of human consciousness. It was, the hydrologists claimed, utopia achieved.

The obscenely rich were the hydrologist’s first clients, many taken near the end of their lives. The procedure did not always work, but there were enough successes to spur people’s interest. People suffering from terminal illnesses volunteered to be inscribed, and the hydrologists worked and refined their process. Private companies formed and competition forced price wars. Hundreds of customers grew to thousands, and then to millions. There were landmark court cases arguing whether or not health insurance should cover the cost of the inscription—whether or not this was a medical procedure designed to save lives or a form of physician assisted suicide. The law struggled to decide if life ended when the body was drained to a dry, leathery husk, or if life continued inside those glowing, sealed aquariums.

I was thirteen when the governments seized control of the laboratories, first in the Eastern European countries. Then the labs of Europe and the Middle East were swallowed up. Terrorist attacks soon followed and destroyed most of the civilized world over the next three years. The United States, Canada, and Greece, those bastions of democracy, did not fall until the very end. Of course, by then no one cared whether or not the government or the private companies ran the uploading programs. Many of the aquariums ruptured in the strife and the droplets, imbued with human consciousness, re-entered the water cycle of the planet.

CHAPTER ONE

As the sun hovers near the horizon, ready to dip below and plunge the world into darkness, the weather changes for the worse. Clouds gather. Peeking out my window and over the outline of rooftops in the distance is what looks like thunderheads moving toward me in the invisible polluted gusts of wind.

I try not to think about the coming storm as I methodically pull on my boots and zip up my jacket. It is supposed to be waterproof, but I would not risk going out in anything above a light drizzle. Water has a way of seeping through even the best defenses. There’s also a lining that’s overly warm for a summer evening. I’m already sweating and the discomfort adds to my nerves.

I check the hunting knife strapped to my left leg. It was one of the first weapons purchased for me by my dad back when the sporting goods stores were still open for business. He didn’t think I was ready to handle a handgun at thirteen, but he taught me to shoot a rifle in the open fields by our house, helping me hold the weapon steady until I grew strong enough to support the weight. Now, three years later, I have a handgun, a Ruger semi-automatic, but bullets are scarce and loud noises are problematic. My small ammo stash sits in the bottom of my backpack next to the gun.

Instead of the gun, I carry an extra-light crossbow as my go-to weapon. I can hand-make the bolts so I don’t worry about running out of ammunition and the shot is relatively silent. I carry the spare bolts in a quiver strapped to my right leg. It’s awkward when running, but I can draw the bolts fast when needed.

My little sister, Alby, has loaded her own backpack. I lift it to test the weight and then pull a few things out. I place them in my own pack without comment. I help her position the lighter pack over her shoulders, tightening the straps so that it will stay balanced. She always tries to do more than she should, but I don’t like the way her face has a perpetual pinched, strained look or the deep shadows under her eyes. She looks far older than her seven years. This scares me more than everything else and that fear threatens to register on my face. I force myself to stay calm.

I check her raincoat and boots, making sure everything fits snugly. I help Alby pull up the hood of her coat, tucking in a strand of dark hair that has escaped her ponytail. As frightened as she is, she manages to give me a smile. I smile back, trying to present a brave front. As my dad used to say, “fake it till you make it.”  Over the last few years, I’ve been faking confidence more and more often for Alby’s sake.

“Ready to go?” I ask with all the false cheer I can muster in my voice. I take one last glance over the motel room that had served as a temporary home for the last few days, looking for anything that we might have left behind. The room is swept clean. No trace whatsoever that we had ever been there.

Alby nods. “Ready, Cami.”

“If we get separated, remember to keep going north,” I say. “Follow the road till you get to the park, then take the walking paths. No matter what happens, keep going. Stop when you get to the Stone River. I’ll meet you at the bridge in the center of the park where we used to feed the ducks, okay?”

She nods again, looking up at me with those dark eyes so full of trust. I hug her, because if we do get separated, there isn’t much hope we will ever see each other again. I need to keep up the pretense of hope, though, because that’s all we have to keep us going.

Stone River Park is at the very limits of the city and the area surrounding it is relatively unpopulated. I figure that once we are out of the city, our chances of survival will dramatically increase. After reaching the park, we can follow the Stone River north. There’s bound to be deserted houses in the country and less chance that any of the gangs would be interested in the meager pickings outside of the city. We might even be able to find a place to stay before winter.

I crack open the door of our motel room. It is still light enough to stain everything with graying shades of color. The setting sun casts long shadows between the buildings, so I depend more upon my ears to find signs of other humans. I hear no motorcycle engines and no voices, only the wind, blowing and moaning, and the far-off call of a bird. The coming storm appears to have cleared the streets. They are deserted except for empty, crashed vehicles abandoned in every lane.

Alby and I had been lucky to reach the motel a few days ago. The single-story building is on the outskirts of the main town and catered to big rig truck drivers and other traffic from the interstate. I had found the skeleton key in the motel office after climbing in through the bathroom window. Alby and I spent the nights scouring every room for supplies.

No one had broken into it before we got there. Too many other rich targets to go around. But inside each room was a mini-fridge filled with snacks. Even though the electricity had been turned off, the chocolates and small bags of honey-coated nuts were edible. The tiny bottles of alcoholic beverages in each fridge did not seem useful, but I kept a few. They might be helpful in starting a fire someday when we made it outside the city. We even discovered coffee filters and a small bottle of chlorine bleach—a major score for treating our drinking water.

If I hadn’t spent days secretly peering out the dark windows of the motel, I might believe my sister and I were the last two people left on earth. But I know that out there, behind the ruined buildings and boarded-up windows, there are at least a few pairs of eyes whose owners would kill us without a second thought. My eyes flick toward the two bodies hanging from the traffic lights in the nearby intersection. They hadn’t been moved. Good.

The daytime usually belongs to looter-gangs, each with spray-can marked territories in bright displays of color that start on the buildings and drip down toward the pavement. The gangs wear something marked as well, usually a jacket or bandanna that will stand out from a distance. The snipers hole up in their nests and target anyone who encroaches on their gang’s territory. They particularly looked for members of other factions trying to increase their terrain.

Paint tags don’t show up well after dark, though, so the gangs have started leaving their victims as warnings to others not to encroach on their holding. These bodies have been hanging undisturbed in the intersection for several days, indicating a lack of activity in the area. I can only hope that the gangs have moved inward, toward the center of the city and more supply-rich targets.

No one is ever going to catch the murderers, or the ones who strung up the bodies like macabre trophies, and put them in jail. They’ll just go on and do it again and again. Like animals in the jungle—except that animals are not cruel.

We were lucky to go unmolested by the local gangs. Heaven knows we don’t look like we have much of anything, and we don’t look threatening, but that will only last for so long. Someday someone will try to kill us, possibly for no other reason than wanting to watch us die. The whole world, it seems, is at war, and no one is on my side except Alby. We only have each other.

A streak of lightning splits the sky almost directly overhead, making me wince. It is followed by a heavy clap of thunder. As frightening as it is, the bad weather is to our advantage. No one wants to be caught outside in the rain. Everyone is more afraid of fresh, untreated water and what it can do than they are of each other. But I believe we can make it out of the area and to shelter before the rain poses any danger.

In fact I’m betting our lives on it.

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Fall FabFitFun Unboxing The temperature starts to change, the days grow shorter, and that means it's fall subscription box time!