#the gilded covetous cook

[hriobzagelthewanderer]

(sins of the sea) 🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️ (lmao you don't have to do them individually, the Crew as a whole is fine)

It is not hard to pity them, those fools who have been trapped and tricked by the likes of Gorgos - or the many other names the vile thing has become known by over the many millennia it has existed, just as your predecessors have for at least as far back. That might surprise them... you do not judge them as readily as they seem ready to judge themselves, but rather you are more 'disappointed' than 'angry', at least as far as the Seven Sins are themselves. Hatred... that is more in line with what their 'Master' deserves, but not them per se.

Each of the Seven is in many ways self-made as what they are, but you perhaps are objective - or perhaps simply amoral - enough to look past the clear and obvious wrongs and see the potential beneath... the true kindness and goodwill they still have that could have left such a mark, if only they had not fallen into their respective pitfalls... or into His cold, clammy clutches.

'The Master' as he currently calls himself is another beast altogether - hard to place despite proudly(?) wearing the moniker of 'Sea Demon' in many times and tongues... you know from much experience, however, that he is no more a true 'demon' than you are 'simply' Fae - ironically enough, the Devil's in the Details to the point that even if a simple human is enough to harm him, truly ending him outright is, while possible, extremely unpalatable given what else would get dragged down to the depths of oblivion with him...

In spite of the clear hatred between you for all the most valid reasons, you have always had an odd mutual respect despite that; for all your respective power and history, it is hard to deny the true cunning and vicious skill in each other, enough to make calling him a 'Rival' as much as an 'Enemy' a fair admission, and him towards you in turn.

...That said, you can admire someone's talents and still hate their guts - that much has always been true, and never been in question. The true question is how to 'fight' the Master effectively... you have several options, but even so your current methods seem to be gaining traction... for now... though another little 'intervention' may be in order given recent events...

After all, Pettiness is not solely the domain of 'The Master', any more than Deal-Making is... And if nothing else, there are few things you enjoy inflicting upon your enemies more than Irony...

"...even now, even weakened and literally half-blinded by his own hubris... even now I still feel the ache of loss, watching Atlantis sink into the ocean, knowing I at least saved their souls but still bearing painful witness of each life being snuffed out as the waters claimed them... And the less said of Pompeii, the better. I know my time has passed, and my successor is likely not the one to end that cancerous blight of bloated corpses... but is it wrong to hope he bears witness to that vile creature's demise, all the same?"

"...Alas, it appears that there are so-called 'Demons' beyond my ilk that can rival us all the same... yet what claims has he to our kin? Naught but a shambling orifice of lies and stolen souls, Mockery of the highest order! May my power aid in the deposition of such filth, for even now, my bile churns at the notion of its victory."

[moonnhare]

it manifests itself as an ache. a tightness in the chest, like blood condensing, or hunger neglected too long. it is a restlessness: tapping fingers, bouncing legs. it is grinning mid-sentence. it pushes up from the ground to dip back down: the slope of a spine, the web of the mycelium, a repetition of chords. i’m gilding the edges of your frame and the canvas, too, and then propping it up against my wall.

it’s the laughter i choke on and it’s the image of us i so deliberately put together in my mind. it’s latching onto something you created and expanding it. it’s the bellsong shaken from a charm i carry, it’s the bellsong once found and then lost and then resurrected. it’s a book title, it’s a hospital bed, it’s a graveyard constantly expanding. we’re carving our initials into the marble of a tomb and then scratching a heart around them. there is the touch of light cutting through fog, there are your eyes burrowing into me: i unlatch my heart to make it happen.

welcome in, i say, and you sink into the carpet. the tea has been sitting for a while, i say, and it really should be cold by now. you take a cup between your rain-slick hands and, miraculously, a wisp of steam licks your jaw. i proudly show you an urn, all bumpy porcelain and gold lace; it looks almost sturdy. i have been working on this for a long time. it can hold water again. i am finally talking about it all. i am letting the reptiles out, and the deer, and the four winds, and i am bringing life to this woodland again. you can hear it echoing around my windows. this is an era like the stirrings of dawn.

in a skull-encrusted maze i bend over a dusty chest. dual locks click, and i wipe the edges clean. i do not leave the lid carelessly open, but its contents are not so coveted anymore. vines sneak through the cracks in old femurs and vertebrae. the catacombs are flowering. i’m showered in cherry blossoms.

so much of life happens in a hospital bed. there is birth, there is death, and all of the healing that happens in between. mending is a journey running parallel to [or perhaps intertwining with?] the rest of life, and love, too. cooking is mending and writing is mending and within my words i am mending. my monitor is beeping steadily, now, and i can receive visitors. i’m sweeping the last rat out from under the rug. five years’ dwelling and, finally, all my eviction notices are being enforced. i’m getting better at enforcing.

fondness spills out from behind my teeth. my fingertips tap on one another and i think kiss me here. more often, though, i look at a mess of blankets and think lie with me here. i want you under the stillness of moonlight, during the hours you’ve claimed as your own. and i want to press my lips against you. more so, i want to talk to you, and i want to see your brain fizzle out, and i want to make your heart skip. i want to dig you up. i want your clumsy paws and the pressure of your head butting into my neck. i want spring. i have been hard and i have been sharp and i have been soft; now i am falling further into goosedown and simmering us until we are sweet and gentle as fairy milk.

you’ve always found your footing, even when the stairs bend uneven. it’s easy to let you in. it’s easy to steep my garden in your cup. it’s like calling out hey, welcome back. it’s like milling about a candlelit room or stirring up smoldering coals. it’s been easy to find you. you’re easy to pick out of a crowd, and even easier to notice when you sit back in my armchair, tentatively brushing the urn i placed next to you.

[hirako5hinji]

@viciousvizard asked:

Naturally she has spent all day making these for him. Well, not all day since she has prepped the ingredients the night before. But she has cooked and made the chocolate sweet treats today. By his request alone, she has presented him with a box of nama chocolates. A silky, smooth piece of dark chocolate and cream that was whipped together and refrigerated for hours until she had carefully cut it into square pieces and decorated with edible gold dust. The square pieces were aligned in a red box with a ribbon and waited to hand them to him. At first, she wanted to hand it to him straight away but then waited until it was lunchtime. It was her first time handing him honmei chocolate, but she has always only wanted him to accept her feelings. "So... This is for ya 'n I wanted 'ta ask... Will ya be my valentine?" She handed him the answer cards (both only had the option of yes and absolutely).

         He had been looking forward to her chocolates the entire day, and was almost antsy with anticipation as the hours dragged on. After all, of all the chocolates he received on this day, hers was the most coveted. 

          Last year had been the first time she had awkwardly presented honmei choco instead of the usual giri or tomo ones, and that night had been incredibly enjoyable for the both of them, as he recalled. The smooth, rich box of candy had been exquisitely tempered and carefully decorated, but Shinji had ended up spending most of his time appreciating his very cute giver, instead. The chocolate that she had made specially for him had tasted sinfully decadent, melted between their mated tongues as he sampled the delicious bittersweet dessert straight from her mouth…and he had been insatiable for more chocolate-flavored Hiyori.

         Dark gold eyes were glimmering with the pleasant memories of yesteryear, even as his nimble hands made quick work of the silk tie that he was putting on, deftly making the loops and straightening the tongue after tying the intricate knot at the base of his throat, before sliding the discreet tie clip in place to secure the entire arrangement. He was sharply dressed in modern clothes for the occasion, checking his appearance in the mirror to make sure that not one hair was out of place, nor a stray thread sticking out. Dress pants, dress shirt, nice jacket, all crisply ironed and immaculate put on, well-fitting to his whipcord lean, elegant physique.

         He smirked slightly at his handsome, gilded reflection, especially anticipating how Hiyori would go wild for his appearance whenever he looked like that. Her favorite cologne was applied artfully behind his ears and on his nape, subtle and faintly alluring, so as to tempt her to nuzzle closer like she usually did…

              “ Are ya done out there, Hiyori? ” he called out after one last check. She had banned him from the kitchen since morning, but the faintly sweet aroma of chocolates permeated through the entire house. It was pleasantly lively…a stark change from how remote and still this residence used to be before its present mistress moved in and imbued every nook and cranny of the huge space with her dynamic, feisty presence. Shinji loved it, now. It was warm. It was home.

         He padded out of the bedroom in house slippers and went to seek his busy little wife in the kitchen. Even though she was still a bit frazzled and fluffed up from his over stimulation earlier (he had nuzzled and snuggled and smooched her to within an inch of her life first thing in the morning, much to her muffled yells of dismay), she had settled down mostly now, and he leaned one hip against the doorway and watched her bustle about cleaning and washing up after all that tedious, deliberate chocolate work. His eyes glowed with pleasure when she wandered up and personally handed him the careful, intricate labors of her love. This was the first time she was giving it to him personally like this, he realized. Last year, she had left it on the table for him to find. She was getting braver, and more comfortable with her feelings, he thought, and that made him smile wider. He held the bright red box (her color, her heart) securely in the palm of his hand, uncovering the lid and smiling foolishly at its gold dusted contents.  

              “ Thanks, hiyoko. I accept with great pleasure, ” he purred. Just like the year before, he picked up a square of the soft, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate and fed it to his love. Then, he leaned over and kissed her. First softly over her lips, then sealing his mouth over hers firmly and pressing deeper, coaxing her lips to part, so that he could taste the intriguing flavor of her mingled with the sweet, creamy chocolate… His pierced tongue flicked against hers, stroked and curled erotically around her oral appendage, slowly drinking her sweetness in, until they were both dizzy and slightly drunk off of each other, reluctantly parting for air. That boyish, giddy grin still sat on his face, as he leaned back in quickly to lap at the smear of chocolate that stained her lower lip, now reddened and swollen from how he had suckled and nibbled on her delectable flesh.

              “ ...Yes. Of course my answer’s always gonna be yes. ” The answer cards dropped to the floor as he set the box on the counter and picked her up instead, placing her right beside the candy and stepping in right between her legs so that he could indulge in his favorite sweet. They shared a few more squares of chocolate between them, licking at each other’s mouths between sticky kisses, before Shinji was finally sated.

              “ My valentine’s off ‘ta great start already... ” his voice was deliciously husky, before he cleared his throat and kissed her warm cheek softly, his gaze glowing with affection. “ C’mon then, sweet ‘lil chick. I’ve got a special date arranged for us. Thanks for yer hard work all morning; now’s my turn ‘ta make sure we have plenty of fun together the rest of the day, too~ ”

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Goals

When Caesar invited him to ‘dinner’ he expected something home cooked for some reason. He wasn’t sure why he thought that. But his expectations still resided in the snowy north where men invited men to dinner around a table prepared by their mothers, wives, daughters and sisters.

This was not that world, but part of him still forgot that. He was quickly reminded when he was pushed in a wheel chair into a dining room by a black suited butler in a gilded dining room, brightly lit with crystal sconces.

This time Caesar was there front and center. In a blue suit, vest and tie. “I’m glad you could make it.” He said with a slight gracious bow.

“I’m happy to have an excuse to get out of the hospital. But I never expected something like this.” He returned the bow with a nod of his head, mentally filing away his expectation of life above the Arctic Circle into the recesses of his mind.

Caesar chuckled. “Being cooped up like that must be unbearable.”

Sergey waved the butler away when he tried to help him into the dining chair. He could get in and out of the wheel chairs just fine. He just found himself winded when walking too far of a distance. 

“Last time we spoke, you were looking for that skeleton. Did you ever find it?” Sergey asked.

“I’d rather not talk business. The reason I invited you is because I want to get to know you better.” Caesar also took his seat.

The waiters swept in with various vintages of wine and vodkas. He looked at them in turn, his eyes falling on the vodka. He couldn’t help but think back on the last time he tasted it.

“Something wrong?”

He turned and looked at Caesar and took a breath and let it out. “No. There is nothing wrong here. Everything wrong is here.” He pointed to his temple. “Whatever you think would go well with me the meal. I will drink that.”

Caesar’s eyes narrowed. “You’re so proud, yet so passive. I don’t understand it.”

Sergey turned to face him. “When you come from where I am from, you understand that you have no control over much of anything. Good or bad. Where I’m from, we don’t dwell on the good or the bad. If things are good, we enjoy them to the full while he can. But when things are bad, we understand it is temporary and will pass with time. We can’t stop the winter from coming, and we can’t make it go any faster. We can’t make the sun come up, but we know it will eventually. We just have to stay alive until then.”

“Where I’m from, if there was a way to control the sun, we would find it.” Caesar said, seriously. “That is the way of people destined to rule the world. Never being satisfied with the why things are.”

Destined to rule the world? To Sergey, these words were the beginning of a fairy tale or a myth. Great kings who ruled the world were the dragons. And they were dead. “You want to rule the world, Caesar?”

“If I could live my life seeking greater and greater challenges, nothing would make me happier! Ruling the world is just a natural result of that. I want to do the best I have with the gifts I’ve gotten. If in the end, I don’t become the ruler of the world, I will be satisfied because I have left nothing on the table.”

He leaned on the table with his elbows twining his fingers. “You have a lot of gifts. Far more than me. Yet you’re quite to content to sit on them.”

“What is it to you what I do with my gifts? I don’t tell you what to do with your money.” Sergey grumbled.

“I don’t believe you understand what you have. If I can show you and you’re still content to let the world turn without you, that’s one thing. But if I don’t bother to show you,  then that’s on me.”

The waiters came back around with food, brightly grilled salmon on a bed of fresh greens. His mouth watered at the sight and the smell of it. But still he hesitated, the image of Herzog’s poison vodka still on his mind.

“And what if I do something with my gifts you don’t approve of?” He asked.

“Like I said, I thrive on challenge.” Caesar snapped out his napkin. “I feel like you and I will face each other one day. I would like to have a worthy opponent.”

He chuckled to himself. Nothing Caesar did was for charity. And he felt more comforted by that. The dagger was in clear view and not hidden in a veneer of kindness.

Much to his surprise, Caesar returned his smile. “You’ll take me up on my offer then.”

“Yes. I am curious.”

“About what?” He cut into his salmon taking a bite.

“Everyone says the Light King’s blood is powerful and violent. Why? I certainly don’t feel any different.”

“The Light King coveted the Dark King’s throne. This rival is the only one who could resist his call of Imperium. When the Dark King used his voice, all dragons around the world would hear it and bend the knee. She had no such natural authority, so she used fear and violence to control...”

Caesar rested his cheek in his hand. “Of course, all we know is from the Icy Sea Scrolls. Which were written by the Dark King, her enemy. Who knows the truth?”

“In my vision, I saw her being burned alive. That seemed pretty violent to me.” Sergey responded.

Caesar eyes shifted to him. “You might be the key to the truth, but what that truth is might make us natural enemies as well.”

“The Dark King and the Light King ruled together for a long time. What made her change her mind?”

“For whatever reason, she thought she could do better. Why she felt that way hardly matters, because in the end, she lost. Tell me, what do you want out of life Sergey?”

“What I want out of life?”

“Hmph. My desire was to marry Katarina and work to make her a happy home. But then she died. And I have no home. So at the moment. I want ...” A sharp pang halted his voice.

Caesar’s hand lowered, not expecting such a direct answer. He dismissed a waiter with a raise of his finger. “Tell me about her.”

He didn’t want to. Memories of her flooded his mind. The pain overwhelmed him and in its wake came that strange shadow. That presence that swept away his thoughts.

[ashraful090]

The 60 Best Watches for Men 2020

The Esquire editors pick their favourite new and upcoming watches from big Swiss brands and under-the-radar newbies.The Esquire editors pick their favourite new and upcoming watches, including launches from Breitling, Audemars Piguet, Omega and Cartier.So named after the British explorer who discovered New Zealand, Rado's Captain Cook was first brought to life in the Sixties, and not aboard the ships of ponytailed colonists. And now, the archival piece is available in the enduring case material du jour – bronze – with a punchy forest green dial.

It's another set of features that sets the dive watch apart, and one that'll keep the Captain Cook in the good books: upon its release, Rado's dive watch was largely seen as one of the best in class. That hasn't changed much. And now, you can even get it on a Nato strap..It is a crying shame that Tag Heuer's Monaco – a watch that paid homage to the race track of Le Mans – was decommissioned for around 20 years. But following a re-release in 1998, it's slowly become one of the marque's marquee pieces. In 2020, they've managed to improve it still.

As part of a trio that made slight amendments to the current Monaco model, a black dial on black leather is as close to dress watch territory as a racing watch can park and better yet, the in-house Heuer 02 movement has enough juice for over 80 hours of action.Once upon a time, the industry wasn't centred in Switzerland. American manufacturing had a stake in the watch business too, rigging small town Main Street aesthetics with big impressive movements. Hamilton was at the forefront.

Now, it's re-released a 1968 archival piece for 2020. It's got impressive Swiss innards these days, yes, but in terms of what's on the outside, very little has changed. And that's a good thing. For all the opulence and extravagance of a diamond-laden automatic from the Jura, there's as much charm in an 'aw shucks' midwestern sensibility.A Rolex on the wrist is a serious investment. And thus, a serious watch. Though for all the commanding Wall Street presence of a big Day-Date, the industry's biggest marque is releasing watches that are a bit fun, a little bit more playful – watches just like the new Oyster Perpetual 36.

Quietly released just a few months ago, a tangerine dial on stainless steel is the off-duty Rolex collectors have long dreamt about, and better yet, it's no solo act: the Oyster Perpetual 36 sits within a larger collection of five watches in shades of candyfloss pink, forest green, sky blue and blood red.A Lange & Söhne is a connoisseur's watch brand. That's why it uses terms like 'rattrapante', confident that its clientele will know that it refers to a double chronograph that can record multiple time intervals at the same time. Taken from the French for 'catch up', it's a proper horologist's complication, the driving watch equivalent of a 600bhp V8 under the bonnet. And in the skilful hands of A Lange & Söhne, a piece of practical watchmaking becomes pure artistry, courtesy of a gold alloy that's said to be "considerably harder than platinum". We'll take their word for that.Without the deep blue sea, Oris wouldn't be able to make its big bold dive watches. And as such, the Swiss marque has a good habit of giving back to subaqueous charities. For its latest gesture: the Oris Hangang Limited Edition.

Released in tandem with the Korea Foundation for Environmental Movement, the Hangang Limited Edition siphons a section of its profits to a clean-up operation on the river of the same name – South Korea's second longest in fact. The piece is also as good as its intentions, with an automatic movement powering an emerald dial (inspired by the creeks of the Hangang's source) with an engraved caseback depicting the river's path across Korea.As one of the oldest watch marques in the whole wide world (if not the oldest, but that's up for debate), Vacheron Constantin is on the top shelf of Swiss watches. That's because they're known for wholly classic, hi-spec pieces. But that doesn't mean they're averse to New Things, though.

Case in point: the Overseas Self-Winding in pink gold. While previously gilding other models in rose gold, pink gold is defined by a smaller copper content, giving it a lighter blush and a subtle newness to the Overseas model. Factor in an impressive movement too (the splendid in-house caliber 5100) and here's a watch that plays to the well-worn strengths of Vacheron Constantin.

01

Apple Cyber Week deals: MacBook, Apple Watch, AirPods, more

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Continue

02

Apple Watch May Gain Breakthrough Health Feature, Patent Hints

Apple Watch Series 6 measures blood oxygen levels - will a future model monitor blood pressure, too? ... [+]

Apple

Since the first Apple Watch was launched, health and fitness have been front-and-center. So, the latest patents suggest a whole new capability may be about to be added: continuous blood pressure monitoring.

MORE FROM FORBESApple Reveals Its Highly-Anticipated Apple Watch Upgrade Is Almost HereBy David Phelan

Two patents have just been made public, as seen on Patently Apple, which indicate that Apple is working on adding this to the raft of features already on its smartwatches. The latest model, Apple Watch Series 6, measures blood oxygen level and can look out for atrial fibrillation and take an ECG reading. Several Apple Watches alert users if their heart rate is unusually high or low, offer sleep tracking and have a neat stress-reduction app called Breathe.

So, blood pressure monitoring would be a great next step. It wouldn’t quite be a first – Samsung has this feature in some of its smartwatches, but it has yet to be deployed conveniently or widely and requires calibration using a separate, standalone blood pressure monitor on a monthly basis.

The new arrivals are what are called continuation patents, which means the new ones are related to previous blood pressure monitoring patents which date as far back as 2014. In other words, Apple has been investigating this for quite some time.

The titles are, as is usual with this kind of thing, really catchy: "Electrical Coupling of Pulse Transit Time (PTT) Measurement System to Heart for Blood Pressure Measurement." Sounds like a real page-turner, no?

Some details of how the blood pressure monitoring might work on a future Apple Watch.

USPTO

The purpose of the patents is more interesting, including a focus on providing a continuous measurement in a non-invasive way, though the patents also suggest that two sensors will be required, only one of which would be the Apple Watch, with the other described merely as an electrode. The two together would be used so they are “processing the voltage levels to detect when a volume of blood is ejected from the left ventricle; processing output from a pulse arrival sensor coupled to the wrist-worn device to detect when a blood pressure pulse generated by ejection of the volume of blood from the left ventricle arrives at the wrist; calculating a pulse transit time (PTT) for transit of the blood pressure pulse from the left ventricle to the wrist; and determining one or more blood pressure values for the subject based on the PTT.”

All clear?

Well, that’s the point of these patents, to reveal enough for Apple to own the innovation without pinning things down too much.

MORE FROM FORBESApple Watch Series 7 To Have Innovative Features, Upgraded Design, Insider SaysBy David Phelan

Will the final feature, if it ever comes to fruition, involve multiple sensors, or could it, like the ECG feature in the Apple Watch, simply require a circle to be completed by the user touching a sensor in the digital crown with one hand while the sensor on the back of the Watch makes contact with the opposite arm?

The fact that Apple is considering multiple sensors reveals that this is a more complex operation going on here.

When will we see blood pressure monitoring in the Apple Watch? As with all patent applications, it’s impossible to say when, or even if, it will develop into a Watch feature.

But the fact that Apple has been working on patents in this area since 2014 tells you it’s put considerable resources into making it happen and the time could indicate that it will be in an Apple Watch sooner rather than later. As soon as Apple Watch Series 7, expected next Fall? Watch this space.

Follow me on Instagram by clicking here: davidphelantech and Twitter: @davidphelan2009

MORE FROM FORBESApple MacBook Air 2020 Review: Really, Who Needs The Pro?By David Phelan

03

The best Cyber Monday Apple Watch deals still available include $50 off the Series 6 and $20 off the SE

When you buy through our links, we may earn money from our affiliate partners. Learn more.

• Cyber Monday 2020 Apple deals are still live, bringing some of the best prices of the year for highly coveted tech products like Apple Watches and AirPods.

• The $400 Apple Watch Series 6, released in September 2020, is $50 off at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart and Target, while the $280 Apple Watch SE is down $20.

• Stores are offering deals on older Apple Watches, too, including $100 to $200 off the Apple Watch Series 5 at Best Buy, and $50 off the Apple Watch Series 3 at Target.

• Here are the best Cyber Monday deals we're tracking across the internet, all-day, every day.

The Apple Watch is the top smartwatch for iPhone users, combining heath and fitness tracking features with style and design. The latest wearrable tech can be expensive, but Cyber Monday has delivered deals on the newly released Apple Watch Series 6, along with older Apple Watch models, at multiple retailers.

Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target have been offering discounts of $50 to $200 off the Apple Watch since Thanksgiving and Black Friday , and Cyber Monday might be the last chance to claim these deals during the 2020 holiday season.

If you're not sure which Apple Watch is best for you, we've broken down the features for each model in our Apple Watch buying guide, and reviewed each model separately. Business Insider's Apple reporter Lisa Eadiccio said the $280 Apple Watch SE is the best choice for most prospective buyers.

It's important to note that some color options and sizes have varying deals. We try to point out the best deals, but a color or size option you want may not be as low.

Apple's top $400 Series 6 model with all the bells and whistles is getting a $50 discount at the moment. It includes a fast processor inside and a new blood-oxygen sensor. This measures SpO2 levels to track your overall respiratory and cardiac health alongside the usual array of health and fitness tracking sensors and features.

You can read our full Apple Watch Series 6 review here.

If you're willing to buy a slightly older Apple Watch model for a deep discount, Best Buy is offering $100 off the standard Apple Watch Series 5 (now $329) and $200 off the version that uses mobile data (now $449).

The Series 5 is a model that Apple doesn't sell anymore, but it's still a great buy if you can get it for less than the Series 6. It's similar to the cheaper Apple Watch SE, but with an always-on display and advanced health capabilities like ECG monitoring that the SE doesn't.

But, you can easily argue that you don't really need the Series 5 or Series 4, as the more recent Apple Watch SE has similar specs and features, and its $280 retail price is already lower. Add in the $20 off deal we're seeing right now for Cyber Monday, and the SE becomes even more tempting.

You can read our full Apple Watch SE review here.

The Apple Watch SE is the perfect blend of features and affordability. This recently released Apple Watch is selling for $20 less than its usual price — which was already a bargain for all it offers.

And, if you're avoiding big price tags and looking for the core Apple Watch experience, the Apple Watch Series 3 will suit most people just fine. For a $200 retail price, it's already a good option for budget-conscious buyers. An extra $50 off sweetens the deal even further.

You can read our full Apple Watch Series 3 review here.

The Apple Watch Series 3 in aluminum is the perfect blend of style and functionality for an excellent price.

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Disclosure: This post is brought to you by the Insider Reviews team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners. We frequently receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising sales team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (75/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[6 March 234 Before Age.  Nat-Chezz II.]

When Zaperc led the Saiyans to Nat-Chezz II, their plan had been to defend the planet against any would-be invaders.   The idea was to imitate what the Super Saiyan Luffa had achieved with her establishment of an interplanetary Federation.   Instead of seeking out easy battles, they would stand their ground and try to cultivate a reputation as a force to be reckoned with.    This would in turn attract even stronger invaders, giving the Saiyans a chance to become stronger themselves as they repelled them.   At least, this was the theory.

In practice, Zaperc’s followers were virtually indistinguishable from the sort of invaders they pledged to drive off.    Upon arrival, they declared martial law, shut down much of the planet’s communications, and helped themselves to whatever supplies and treasure they wished.  The Chezzi people had endured worse occupations in the past, so they tolerated the situation for a time, but they still breathed a sigh of relief when Luffa discovered their plight and intervened.  

In the weeks that followed, Luffa subjected these Saiyans to intense training, determined to mold the band into the sort of champions they had claimed to be.   The Chezzi King had allowed them to keep the mansion they had appropriated, but all the treasure they had taken was returned, and the Saiyans spent most of their days drilling in the wilderness or conducting war games with the Chezzi military.   When their work for the day was finished, they convened at their manor and feasted on whatever luckless animals they happened to find during their training exercises.  

“That’s what I like about you, Jikama,” Lesseri said as she ripped hunks of flesh from a carcass on the table.  “You may be half-Chezzi, but at least you eat like a Saiyan.  I knew a mixed-blood on Siphone II.  Guy had no appetite at all.  Creepy.”

“Thanks... I think,” Jikama said between bites.  “So, any word on when Luffa’s coming back?”

“Nothing new,” Vigurd said as she drank an entire pot of stew and wiped her mouth on her forearm.  “What’s wrong, Jikama?  You miss that gilded blowhard already?”

“I just enjoyed her cooking,” he said awkwardly.  “Not that there’s anything wrong with this, but we’ve been roasting animals on a spit for a week now.  I could go for some of that insect crumb of hers.”

“Insect crumb, my foot!” Lesseri scoffed.   “Don’t listen to him, Vigurd.  He just wants another pat on the head from Zattie.”

Jikama chuckled at this.  Of all the Saiyans in Zaperc’s group, he had shown the most improvement in tracking Zatte through dense foliage.   Luffa’s alien wife lacked Saiyan power, but she could make herself virtually undetectable, and she was armed with advanced weaponry and a talent for asymmetrical warfare.     She had praised him a number of times in front of Luffa and the other Saiyans, which had earned him a lot of teasing from his comrades.   Not wishing to antagonize any of them, he smiled and tried to take it in stride.  

“If you asked me, it’d be just as well if she never came back,” muttered Brockle.   He sat at the head of the table, nursing a flagon of ale while he devoured a plate of spare ribs.

“Please, Brockle,” Vigurd laughed.  “We’ve all seen you leer at her when you think no one’s watching.  You miss Zattie more than Jikama does.”

“Yeah,” Lesseri added.   “Don’t take it personally, Brockle.  You’re just not her type, if you know what I mean.”

The two women laughed, and Jikama tried to delicately suggest that maybe they shouldn’t make a habit of calling her “Zattie”, when Brockle slammed his fist on the table.  

“I’m not talking about the damned alien,”  he said.   “I meant Luffa.”

“I wouldn’t let your father hear you talk that way,” Vigurd warned.  

“I’ve learned all I need to know from the Super Saiyan,” Brockle insisted.  “I’m getting stronger every day, and before long I’ll be powerful enough to surpass her.”

“No offense, kid,” Lesseri said, “but get real.  We’ve all felt the ki Luffa puts off.   You’re nowhere near her level.”  

He stood up and raised his fists.  “I’m more than a match for you, Lesseri!” he shouted.  

She nodded and sipped her drink.  “You’re right, but being stronger than me doesn’t change anything, does it?”  

“I have the potential to beat her!” he insisted.   “I know it!”

“Maybe so,” Vigurd said, “but until you do, you’ll have to put up with her crap like the rest of us.   Unless she’s dumb enough to get killed in spaceflight.   I wonder if someone could sneak an explosive on that ship of hers without her noticing...”

“Now what would that accomplish?” Lesseri asked.  

“Oh, I’m just thinking out loud,” Vigurd chuckled.  She finished her meal and patted her sizable belly with satisfaction.  “People would pay a fortune to hire the mercenary who slew the Super Saiyan, wouldn’t they?”

“Not once the word gets around that she’s just a run-of-the-mill Saiyan like a hundred thousand others available for hire,” Lesseri noted.   “All you’d prove is that you know how to set a time-bomb.”

“Wouldn’t someone else try to bomb your ship?” Jikama suggested.    “Then they could cash in on being the one to kill the mercenary who killed the Super Saiyan.”

Lesseri pointed a table knife at Jikama.  “See?  He’s only half-Saiyan and he gets it.”

“I don’t know why my father put up with you fools,” Brockle grumbled.  

“Because he knows he needs all the help he can get to keep his son from getting himself killed,” Lesseri said.   “Maybe you were in line to serve in Rehval’s elite guard, but you fouled that gig up, and now you’ve got to scrape together a living like the rest of us merc trash.   You don’t have to like us, Brockle.   You don’t have to like Luffa either, or her blue-skinned devil girl, for that matter, but you still need us for the time being.”

He opened his mouth to respond, when suddenly all four of them gasped with shock and turned to look up at the sky.   There was nothing to see, at least not with the naked eye, but the ki they had sensed was powerful enough to be sensed, even from outer space.  

“Is that... Luffa?” Vigurd asked.  

“It can’t be,” Brockle said.   “It feels completely different.    And there’s... two of them.”

“Jikama, contact the Chezzi military,” Lesseri said.   “We’ll need telemetry on that ship.”

“Huh?   Oh, right!” he said as he scrambled out of his seat.   While he took off into the air, she turned to Brockle.  

“Go find your father,” she said.  “Looks like we finally have a fight on our hands.”

“I don’t take orders from you, woman!” he said indignantly.  

“That’s right, you don’t,” she said.  “We both take orders from your father, and I’d like to start taking some before whatever that is gets here, so hurry up and find him!”

He muttered obscenities under his breath as he got up from the table, promising himself that she would pay for her disrespect, but Lesseri didn’t care as long as he did as she asked.  

She looked to Vigurd next.  “Do me a favor and prep Zaperc’s ship for launch.”

“What?” Vigurd asked.   “You want to run?”

“Right now I want to keep my options open,” Lesseri said.   “Without Luffa to back us up, I don’t know if we can beat these guys, and I don’t know if Zaperc’s sensible enough to order a retreat.  I don’t know about you, but I’d like an escape route handy.”

“You know, so would I, now that you mention it,” Vigurd said after a moment’s consideration.  

“Yes, I thought you might,” Lesseri said after Vigurd flew off.

*******

Two hours later, Zaperc was with Hijik in the throneroom of the King of Nat-Chezz, accompanied by several high-ranking military commanders.   They had been discussing plans to destroy the incoming vessel  before it could deploy its forces, when suddenly an image of two women appeared in the center of the room.    

Both of them had pale, almost transparent skin.  The shorter of the two was almost completely concealed beneath a black cloak.  Only her bare feet and lower shins were visible below the hem, and the hood of her cloak revealed only the portion of her face below her eyes.    Her nose and mouth were contorted into a cruel sneer.  

The taller woman was adorned in black leather up to her chest, which added emphasis to her large, muscular arms.  An iron helmet concealed her eyes as well, though a dark, horizontal slot on the front presumably allowed her to see out of it.  Lengths of wire hung from the back of the helmet, almost as if to serve as a crude substitute for hair.   Her lips were stretched to reveal her clenched teeth, as though she were constantly on the verge of biting someone.

“Are they holograms?” the king asked.  

“I think they’re some sort of ki constructs, Sire,” Zaperc said cautiously.   “Hijik, can you sense them too?”

Hijik nodded, and curled his tail around his waist.  Before he could give his own opinion on the images, the cloaked one addressed the room.

“Hail, King of Nat-Chezz.  I am Ünderlyne, and this is Stryquethru.   Henceforth, we shall be the new masters of your world.”

“Long have we coveted your scandium resources, King of the Chezzi,” Stryquethru growled through her teeth.   “You will surrender your world to us, or we shall take it by force.      Doubtless you have warriors who can already sense our power approaching your world.  They will tell you that we cannot be defeated.   Heed their warning and surrender to us!”

“Surrender, and you shall be shown... mercy...” promised Ünderlyne, though her tone lacked sincerity.   “The tender mercies of Stryquethru and Ünderlyne...  Oh how we beg you to submit.”

“Resist,” Stryquethru seethed, “and your people shall suffer terribly!   Woe to the defiant!   For there is no refuge from our wrath!”  

“Woe!” wailed Ünderlyne.  

“Woe!” added Stryquethru.

“Wooooooooeeeeee!” they howled in unison.  

As their voices faded, so too did their images, and the message appeared to be concluded.   The king looked to his advisors, and then to the two Saiyans, desperate for counsel.    

“At current velocity, we expect them to reach the planet in two hours, Sire,” said one of the generals.

“My son Brockle may be able to destroy their ship before it reaches the atmosphere, Sire,” Zaperc said.   “If not, I would recommend deploying our forces here...”

“Is this a joke?!” Hijik yelled.  

Suddenly, everyone in the room fell silent, and all eyes were looking to him.  

“It’s obviously a trick!” Hijik said.  “Am I the only one who sees it?”

“Hijik, what are you talking about?” Zaperc demanded.  “We don’t have time for--”

“That was Luffa, of course!” Hijik said.  “Luffa and her alien ‘partner’ or whatever she calls it!  They left the planet days ago, frustrated that we weren’t jumping through their hoops fast enough for them, so they dreamed up this phony invasion as some pathetic team-building exercise!”  

Silence fell upon the room again.   At last, the king spoke.   “Zaperc, could he be right?   Would the Super Saiyan do such a thing?”

Zaperc hesitated.   He had studied Luffa’s career for over two years, only to find that the real Luffa was very different from what his sources had told him.  She had been testing them for weeks now.  Could this be another test?  If it was, wouldn’t she have informed the king?  Perhaps he was aware of her plan, and he was feigning ignorance to help Luffa gauge their reactions.  

“I... I don’t know,” he finally said.   “Perhaps we should wait and see.”

“Wait?! Wait for what?” one of the Chezzi generals demanded.   “Neither of those women looked nothing like Luffa.  The shorter one was at least six inches taller than her.”

“It was a ki projection,” Hijik said.    “They could have made it look any size or shape they wanted!”

“And since when does Luffa have that ability?” the general asked sharply.  

“Her woman has all sorts of energy manipulation powers,” Hijik said.  “Working together, there’s no telling what they could do.”

“But why go to all this trouble?”  the Chezzi king asked.    “Why not simply arrange a war game maneuver?”

“Because it’s a team-building exercise,” Hijik said.  The disgust in his voice made it sound like he was describing the most detestable atrocity he could imagine.  “You don’t understand how women think, Your Majesty.   They want to humiliate us, then force us to work together against a common foe, and then they’ll reveal their ruse at the last moment, to reinforce the idea that none of us can accomplish anything unless they allow it.”

“Wh-what?” the king asked.  

Hijik sighed.  “I can see I’ll have to go over the basics of involuntary celibacy with you.   I’ll need something to write on so I can make a diagram...”

********

On a cozy island village off the coast of one of Nat-Chezz’s larger continents, Bodi stood in a library and watched patiently while a Chezzi woman looked through an almanac.  

“Sorry this is taking so long,” she said as she ran her maroon-skinned fingers down a table printed on page 702.  “You’d probably have more luck calling the Royal Astronomy Society.   They have a computer program that calculates things like this.”

Bodi smirked as he rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.  “Luck?   Calculations?” he asked.   “With the fate of this world on the line, there can be no half-measures.   Take your time, and while you concentrate on finding the answer I need, I will drink in your beauty, and let it inspire my Saiyan power to unseen heights!”

The woman faltered for a moment, and clutched at her temples.   Even the horns on her head seemed to droop slightly.  

“Is something wrong?” Bodi asked.  “Have you found it?”

“No, I just... felt a little ill for a moment,” she said.  “Could you maybe save the cheesy lines for after the invasion?”

“Very well,” Bodi said as he dramatically removed his sunglasses.  “I accept!”

He had been patrolling this part of the planet when he sensed the huge powers approaching from space.  With Luffa and Zatte offworld, his standing orders were to report to Zaperc and the Chezzi military command, but he knew better.   There would be only one way to halt this impending doom.   Only one power that could bring Bodi and his comrade the victory they all craved.  Bodi would seize that power, and with it, the triumph, and with that... maybe some grateful Chezzi women...

“Okay, I think I’ve got it,” she said.  

“Good job!” he cheered, pointing at her with both hands.   “The location of the full moon!”

“Well, that’s just it,” she said sheepishly.  “The full moon won’t be in the sky for another week.   It doesn’t matter where you go on the planet’s surface.   It all depends on the moon’s position in relation to the sun.”

His jaw dropped.  

“What I was thinking of was a solar eclipse,” she explained.    “With those, it depends on where the observer is on the planet’s surface.   At a certain latitude, the moon would obscure more of the sun’s disc, but that has nothing to do with lunar phases.   I’m sorry.”

He didn’t move.   A pathetic squeaking sound emanated from his throat, but nothing more.

“Are you sure you need this Giant Ape form to win?” she asked.   “It just seems kind of unreliable to me.   You get all this power from it, but it only works under the light of the full moon.  And what if the invaders managed to cut off your tail?”

He nodded slightly.  

“Well, is there anything else I can help you with?” she asked.   “If not, I’ll uh... let you get back to strategizing.   I feel like I ought to see my family before this ship arrives.   So, uh, good luck out there.”

She left him standing there, dumbfounded.  One by one, the other patrons left the building, until at last the librarian at the desk shut off the lights and locked the doors.    Bodi didn’t move, except for a slight twitch as a single tear ran down his cheek.  

*******

“Behold, mistress!   The world of Nat-Chezz.   And soon it shall be ours!  The domain of Stryquethru and Ünderlyne!”

Stryquethru gazed at the image of the planet on the viewscreen, admiring whatever her helmet allowed her to perceive through the slot that obscured her eyes.   A tear of blood ran down her cheek as she made a twisted smile.  

“How peaceful it looks!” she exclaimed through clenched teeth.   “Soon, very, soon my lady--my queen, we shall have all the scandium we could ever need.  Scandium enough to sate the darkest of appetites!”  

Their ship had only one deck, containing a single, nearly empty room.   Nearly every surface was shiny and black, with heavy chains and manacles dangling from various positions on the wall.   There were no physical controls.   Ünderlyne simply waved her hands, seemingly clawing at the air with the long black nails on her fingers, and the ship responded instantly.  

“But hold!” she said.    “We are under attack!”

“The fools!” Stryquethru hissed.  “Do those spineless worms reject our kind warning already?”

“Worry not, my pet,” Ünderlyne said in a spiteful tone.  “The energy beam is a powerful one, rich in vital energy, but easily avoided.   Yes, we need only slip our vessel beneath normal space, into the welcoming darkness of subspace, and wait for the danger to pass.”  

As she spoke, she gestured with her hands to illustrate, and Stryquethru grunted with malicious approval.  Then she tilted back her head and growled.  

“Do I sense... Saiyan power in that attack?” she asked.  

Ünderlyne paused and considered the question carefully.  “Yessssss,” she said with a gleeful cackle.     “And added bonus for our conquest!”

“I would bathe in their blood!” Stryquethru insisted.   “The one who fired that insolent shot!   Yes, my pet, I will not rest until shreds of his viscera are lodged between my teeth!”

“Let us not be hasty,” Ünderlyne said with an evil smile.  “The Saiyans make fine stock for breeding, as well as for soup.   Imagine an entire offshoot of their race, toiling away to refine scandium for our dark bidding.”

Stryquethru screamed for thirty seconds straight.    “Delightful,” she added.   “I cannot bear to wait any longer!  How long until we arrive?!”

“Soon!” Ünderlyne cried.

*******

“Now!” Ünderlyne cried as they stepped out of the hatch of their ship and onto the courtyard of the Chezzi royal palace.  

“Where is the king!?” Stryquethru screeched.  “He must surrender his world to us immediately!”  

“Bring us the king!” Ünderlyne shrieked.  “Lest we hunt him down and devour his eyes!”

But the courtyard was empty, save for the two invaders and their black, disc-shaped vessel.   Suddenly, the vessel was engulfed in an explosion.  

“How dare!” Ünderlyne rasped.  

“My chains!” Stryquethru howled.   “All of my favorite chains were on board!”  

“Take heart, mistress,” Ünderlyne said.  “We shall soon forge new chains, of scandium alloy!”

“Seems your ship is much easier to hit when it’s standing still,” shouted Brockle as he flew over the courtyard.   He alighted just in front of the invaders and the burning hulk that was once their ship.   “Now I only need to destroy the two of you.”

“You were the one!” Stryquethru moaned.   “The one who fired upon us before!   Saiyan!  I would have your innards!”

Brockle clenched his fists and raised his power level to its maximum.    “Come and take them if you can!” he growled.    “I’m going to make an example of the two of you.   When I’m through, no one will dare come near this planet again!”

“Then let us do battle, fool!” Stryquethru shouted.   “Let the seas run red with our blood!   Unleash your power Saiyan.    Bring forth your fury!”

“Wait, stop!  We surrender!”

Brockle turned to see his father running out from one of the palace doors.   He ran past Brockle and dropped to his knees before the dark women.  

“Father, what are you doing?” Brockle asked.  

“Spare my son, please,” Zaperc asked as he clasped his hands together in supplication.   “He is only a boy.”

“Father, I am not a boy, I am seventeen years old!” Brockle protested.  

“How touching,” Ünderlyne cooed.    “The son seeks war, while the father begs for peace.   Do you truly know what you ask, filthy Saiyan?”

“We’re no match for you,” Zaperc said.    “We have no choice but to yield.”

“Then prove your sincerity, knave!” Stryquethru commanded.  “Cut off your tail and eat it here in front of us!”  

“That is disgusting, Stryquethru!” Ünderlyne muttered.  

“It is the only way they will learn, my mistress,” Stryquethru said quietly.  

“Father, you can’t be serious!” Brockle said.   “I’m strong enough to defeat these wretches.    Let me--”

“Son, your power doesn’t even compare!” Zaperc snapped.   “Look past your pride and sense what stands before you!   I’m not sure if even Luffa could stand against these monsters.”

Zaperc’s words were like a heavy blow to his gut.   In that instant, all the confidence simply drained out of Brockle.  “F-father--!” was all he could bring himself to say.  

“I’ll do as you ask,” Zaperc said, glancing down at the end of his furry tail.   “If you agree to let me and my son leave this planet peacefully.”

“No!”

The four of them turned, and found Hijik floating over the courtyard, looking down upon them.   There was a large sphere of energy in his right hand, and he was brandishing it with look of desperation on his face.  

“Hijik, what in blazes are you doing?” Zaperc asked.  

“I’m rescuing your dignity from these she-beasts!” he shouted back.   “We can’t defeat them, but we do have enough power to destroy the planet, or at least render it uninhabitable!”  

“Are you mad, Saiyan?!” Stryquethru barked.   “Put that energy away and come down here!   Or do you want to kill yourself along with the rest of us?!”

“I’m not bluffing!” Hijik said.   “If we can’t have this planet, neither will you!  I suggest you get back in your ship and leave.    This world isn’t safe for your kind!”

“They can’t leave, Hijik!” Zaperc groaned.   “Brockle destroyed their ship!”

This was apparently news to Hijik, or he may have seen it happen, and simply failed to consider the ramifications.    “He... did?!” Hijik stammered.   “But... but...”

“We cannot leave!” Stryquethru gloated.  “Nor would we wish to do so.    Tell me, little man, would you hold that ball of death over us forever?!”

“No, wait!” Hijik said, thinking as fast as he could.  “You could take our ship.”  

“In the first place, Hijik,” Zaperc said, “it’s not ‘our ship’, it’s my ship.   And second--”

As he spoke, they all sensed another Saiyan life energy moving overhead.   It was Vigurd, piloting the very ship they were just discussing.

“What is she doing?” Zaperc asked.  

“That coward!” Brockle fumed.   “She’s running away!  Leaving us behind!”

“Well, someone get to a transmitter and tell her to turn around!” Hijik yelled.  “She doesn’t need to run away now!   She can bring the ship down and hand it off to these two.   Hell, she can leave with them for all I care.   Just so long as they--”

Suddenly, Zaperc’s ship exploded into a fireball, and began a steep descent towards the horizon.  

“Vigurd?!” Zaperc cried.   He couldn’t sense her energy now.   It was possible that a Saiyan of her power level might have survived the explosion, but if Zaperc couldn’t sense her ki, then that meant Vigurd wasn’t using it to protect herself, or to break her fall to the surface.    If she wasn’t dead already, she soon would be.

Hijik wasted no time dreaming up another alternative.   “There’s plenty of other starships on this planet,” he said.  

“Enough!” Stryquethru shouted.   “You’ve put up a nice front, little Saiyan, but your game is over now!  Come down here, and if Ünderlyne deems you suitable, we may make use of you for our breeding experiments.”

“Breeding?” Hijik said.   “You mean, me and you?”

Ünderlyne simply cackled and waved her hands with abandon.  

“And perhaps I as well, dog,” Stryquethru added, “assuming there is anything left of you once dear Ünderlyne is through.”

Hijik quickly dissipated the energy ball in his hand and descended beside Zaperc.   “When do we start?” he asked hopefully.

“Hijik, are you mad?” Zaperc asked.   “A moment ago these two demanded that I eat my own tail!”  

“What’s your point?” he asked.  

“Not so fast, ladies!” called a voice in the distance.    

“Oh, what now?” Hijik groaned.  

The dark women were equally annoyed.   The looked and found a figure standing atop one of the stone pillars in the courtyard, with his arms crossed and his back turned toward them.    With a flourish, he backflipped off the pillar, twisting and flipping as he moved through the air, until at last his feet touched the ground and he struck a dramatic pose.

“Bodi,” Zaperc said.    “I’m asking you to please stay out of this.”

“I’ve come to issue a challenge!” Bodi said.   “We can’t defeat you ladies now, but in a week, when the moon is full, my comrades and I will be ready to fight you with all we’ve got.”  

“Why should we do such a thing?!”  Stryquethru asked.  

“Your comrades are already surrendering to us!” Ünderlyne hissed.   “What possible reason would we have for delaying our triumph?”

He rubbed his chin, then adjusted his sunglasses.   “I see,” he said as he closed his eyes and smiled.    “It seems I failed to consider that.   Very well.   In that case, all that I have left is...”

There was a long pause, and for a moment, Zaperc dared to wonder if Bodi actually had a way out of this situation.  

“... No plans!” Bodi declared.  

Zaperc shook his head mournfully and looked down at his tail once again.  

*******

[7 March 234 Before Age.  Nat-Chezz II.]

As it turned out, Zaperc got to keep his tail, at least for the time being.   As sadistic as the invaders were, they seemed more interested in savoring their victory than in carrying out their threats.   Thus, the first ever “Surrender Banquet” was held in the palace’s main hall.  The decorations made the occasion resemble the interior design of Stryquethru and Ünderlyne’s ship.   The streamers were made of black paper, the bouqets of flowers were dyed to as dark a hue as possible, and pieces of rusted scrap metal were laid upon each table like centerpieces.   At the front of the room was a stage, where the new rulers of Nat-Chezz sat upon their “throne”, which was actually just a black leather sofa they had stabbed with assorted swords and knives.    Hijik and Bodi stood on either side of them, each wearing heavy manacles on their necks and wrists that were more symbolic than functional.  

“When do we start the breeding program?” Hijik asked Ünderlyne .  

“At a time and place of our choosing, mortal fool!” Ünderlyne insisted.   “If you do not stop asking, I shall carve out your tongue!”

“Oh, let him babble, my lady,”  Stryquethru said.   “I enjoy hearing the Saiyan whimper like an animal begging for table scraps.”  

There was a loud metallic crack, and Stryquethru turned to scold Bodi.   “Worthless wretch!  I told you to stop fidgeting with those chains!   Now you’ve broken them!”

Bodi had been trying to scratch his back, which had strained the metal to its breaking point.   He grinned and adjusted his sunglasses.  “Apologies, ladies,” he said as smoothly as he could.   “I suppose that I was so overwhelmed by your animal magnetism that I forgot my own strength.    Best surrender ever!”

At one of the tables, Zaperc was apologizing profusely to the Chezzi king.  

“We still have a chance,” he said in a low voice.   “Lesseri and Jikama are unaccounted for.   One of them might find a way to summon help and--”

“What good will that do?” the king whispered.  “These women are too powerful, Zaperc.  They could defeat an army of Saiyans, and I doubt your comrades can find us that much help.”

“There is the full moon,” Zaperc suggested.   “Bodi may have had the right idea after all.   If we bide our time, we might--”

The king was horrified at this suggestion.   “Don’t you think they’ve already anticipated that tactic?” he asked.   “In another week, they’ll either chop off your tails or destroy our moon.”  

Zaperc sighed as he realized the king was right.   It wasn’t supposed to have been like this.    His son Brockle should have unlocked his hidden potential and become powerful enough to tackle any challenge, including these invaders. Instead, Stryquethru and Ünderlyne had taken the planet without a struggle, and Brockle now sulked in a far corner of the hall, his spirit completely broken.  

"Silence!"  Stryquethru screamed.  "We would have music!  We would see merriment!  Dance, Chezzi insects!  Dance for your dark queens!"

With some reluctance, most of the ’guests’ rose from their chairs and began to dance in an open area of the hall.  As commanded by their new rulers, they all wore black gowns and formal wear mottled with ashes.

"Shall we?" the king said, offering his hand to Zaperc.

Zaperc was irritated by the situation, but he supposed every moment he spent playing along was another moment he got to keep his tail attached to his body.  Begrudgingly, he took the king’s hand and led him through a rudimentary waltz.

"You’ve done this before," the king said with some amazement.  "I didn’t think Saiyans knew how to dance."

"It was in the book," Zaperc explained ruefully.

"The book?   You mean The Luffa Way?" the king asked.

"There’s a section about opening oneself to new experiences.  It goes on to describe a time when Luffa supposedly taught herself to waltz in order to defeat a giant sea serpent on Planet Zeezil."

"And you resolved to learn the same steps," the king said.

Zaperc nodded.  "All of it was a waste of time.  The real Luffa told me the book was a pack of lies.  She had never been to the Zeezil system.  Her wife--who isn’t even mentioned in the book-- told me that Luffa doesn’t know how to dance."

"How gauche," the king said.  "I wonder what they did at their wedding reception..."

"Luffa levitated herself an inch off the ground and let Zatte slide her across the floor like a shuffleboard disc.  At least, that was what Zatte told me.  She may have been joking.  It’s hard for me to tell."

"That sounds rather fun, actually," the king said.  "Would you care to try it?"

Zaperc frowned.  "The point is that I’ve been wasting my time.  I devoted years to following in Luffa’s footsteps, only to find that her feet weren’t even touching the ground!  All the rumors and tall tales and false accounts I’ve studied--! All it’s won me is a life of bondage.  It would all be worth it if this somehow led to a better life for my son, but look at him over there.  I’ve only doomed him to the same fate."

The King glanced back at Brockle, who was still sulking in his chair.  A Chezzi maiden asked him to dance, but he wouldn’t even acknowledge her presence.

"Don’t give up hope, Noble Saiyan," the king said.  "My people have endured numerous conquests and occupations in our history.  This too shall pass."

"How can you say that at a time like this?!" Zaperc asked.  "We can’t defeat these monsters!  Not even Luffa could--!"

Suddenly, there came a loud noise from the back of the hall.  There was a massive double door at the entrance, made of particularly expensive and sturdy breed of Chezzi timber, and decorated with bismuth ink.  These now lay on the floor, the wood splintered and cracked where they had been shorn from their hinges.

"Eh?  Who dares!" Stryquethru screeched.

The newcomer stormed into the hall, walking directly toward the invaders without acknowledging the Saiyans or Chezzi.  When she was standing directly in front of Stryquethru and Ünderlyne’s sofa, she extended her hand and curled in her fingers, beckoning them to come closer.

"Let’s step outside," Luffa said.

NEXT: Post Mortem

[framing-visualculture]

What’s with digital wallpapers in Chinese homes?

This article was originally published on medium.

In China, copying is not at all bad. There is a term “Fu Zhi Pin,” referring to copies of things made with such craft and exactitude that it is worthy of study in a museum. Fast forward to 21st Century and contemporary Chinese domestic space. Copying, or maybe copy pasting, is celebrated, but in a different way. The trend of plastering wallpapers of digitally rendered nature and blog space backgrounds onto walls and floors of Chinese home is an intriguing one. How did the copying of Western architecture in residential communes and homes lead to saturated, digital wallpaper and Karaoke style lighting design to be the preferred taste of the older generation? The answer lies in breaking down the aesthetic of “China Too Cool.”

Knock-offs, counterfeits, unoriginal. These are the words that usually come to mind when we think about things “Made in China.” As China has risen to become the largest export economy in the world, exporting over 2 trillion US dollars worth of goods in 2017, it has become no exaggeration to say that in almost every region of the world, everyone must own or at least have encountered something manufactured in China. In today’s episode, we’re going to consider goods and cultural productions made in China, and question the stereotype of unoriginal counterfeit goods. To do so, we’ll first look at what’s China’s fascination with copying, and then examine architecture and interior design choices to understand the phenomena of tacky, repurposed aesthetic taste that I call “China Too Cool.” The term “Too Cool” is the phonetic English translation of a subcultural style “土酷” (Tuku), which in Chinese means “tacky cool.” The emphasis should be on the English term “Too” and not the Chinese “Tu” as in tacky. It should be considered in its double meaning of both outdated and cool, cooler, coolest — too cool. This style is marked by an attitude of poking ironic fun at but also embracing the stylistic elements of dated popular taste.

To get a visual image of Too Cool, think of the Microsoft rainbow word art on a full background of digitally rendered nature, printed on a glossy, plastic laminated cheap notebook. For visual references, I suggest going to the Instagram page of @butterfly.minmin, a 3D graphic artist who is the living embodiment of the saturated visual overkill of Too Cool.

This dress is set against a digital backdrop of QQ chat, China’s online messenger popular in the early 2000s. It is now regaining popularity with Gen Z users, to set themselves apart from their parents and grandparents who are using WeChat.

There is a long-standing tradition of imitation art within China that boasts of its own classification system. The highest form of simulacrum bears the essence of the original — the qi, or in English, the “life force” — to the extent that the image evokes and becomes a “real” substitute of the original. In this case, art imitates and reproduces life, capturing not a perfect copy of the appearance but its essence. We can see this in traditional Chinese ink painting, where the mountains and lakes do not look realistic, but they exude the spirit of the sublime beauty of nature.

A Chinese ink painting by the late artist Zhang Daqian. He topped art sales in 2011, surpassing Picasso.

The act of perfecting copying is also highly regarded by the Chinese as “testament to cultural and technological achievements.” Journalist and Columbia University professor Alexander Stille points to two Chinese terms, “fangzhipin” and “fuzhipin”, to explain the Chinese attitude toward the copy: “Fangzhipin is closer to what we would call a reproduction — a knockoff you would buy in a museum store — whereas fuzhipin is a very high quality copy, something worthy of study or putting in a museum.” These instances of copying are for the sake of understanding the beauty of form and structure, of technology and craftsmanship, and of artistic achievements. For the Chinese, to perfectly reproduce something shows thorough understanding and extraordinary craftsmanship. Value is perceived in the skill of making, not necessarily in having a new idea.

In the book Original copies: architectural mimicry in contemporary China, author Bianca Bosker examined the intriguing phenomena of “simulacrascapes.” These are themed residential communities in China that replicate archaic European and American towns. For instance, you will have “Little Paris” residencies that feature a miniature Eiffel tower in the middle of its park, or a replicated Venetian neighborhood complete with a canal running through it.

A replica of Venice in Dalian, a modern port city in the North-Eastern part of China

While both the Western and Chinese intellectual elite sigh at the “backward” mass scale replication projects, quick to dismiss them as “kitsch”, “fake”, “unimaginative and cliché”, Bosker provides a more nuanced reading of the phenomenon, explaining the conditions for their existence and viewing them as “monuments to the ‘New China’.” These mass scale residential simulacrascape developments, aimed at the expanding middle class, owe their success to their visibility as “coveted status symbols.” Much like the conspicuous logos of branded goods, these themed residencies featuring the trademark forms of Western cultural achievement are meant to signal wealth and luxury. Beneath the surface of “West worship” actually rests a mindset of Chinese superiority, the conviction that all the good things of the world can be found in China, and tailored to Chinese taste to resemble Chinese peoples’ conception of the foreign — the historical tourist spots showcasing the celebrated moments of Western culture.

Let us now examine the interior choices made by home buyers: by looking at the domestic space, we get a glimpse into the popular taste and preferences of individuals. A little search on Zhihu.com, China’s Quora/ Reddit, brought me to revealing explanations of popular contemporary Chinese interior design choices. What the term “European-style” translates to in China is literally: chandeliers, Greek columns, pompous gilded Rococo motifs and gaudy Baroque furnishing.

Notice the chandelier, Rococo bed frame, and wallpaper, and heavy curtains.

Italian philosopher Umberto Eco once explained that such “eclectic frenzy” and “compulsive imitation” “prevail where wealth has no history.” This aesthetic had seen an earlier manifestation in America, in the seemingly “artificial regions” of post-urban California and Florida and it is happening now for the Chinese nouveau riches, especially after the disruption in historical, cultural, and aesthetic richness as a result of the Cultural Revolution. The Rococo motifs and Greek columns, once elements of high culture and luxury are today considered archaic and kitschy for their irrelevance and impracticality to contemporary urban living. This is especially so after the new standard of design elevating functionality over appearance set by the Bauhaus school and Modernist architecture.

A more interesting development of this interior appropriation is how these “European style” copies evolve into mutations with Chinese characteristics. What is kept of the “European style”, in other words, the elaborately ornamental Rococo and Baroque, is the essence of sensory overload, but the manifestations are more in keeping with “current” trends.

State of the art 3D renderings extending your living room to a fantasy world of nature.

One image from Chinese Quora Zhihu.com shows the design on a sliding closet door (top left). It features bright, saturated colors of blue skies and soaring birds, a high-definition landscape rendering of detailed grass, gradient-infused lotus plants in the foreground, a flat pictorial space, and an unmistakable uplifting mood. It is all too much. It’s too artificial, too uplifting, too bright, too much, “Too Cool.”

This was a photo in a series uploaded by a millennial netizen expressing her disbelief at her parents’ interior design choices for their new house on the outskirts of the main city. She is not alone in her lamentation; threads voicing outcry over outlandish new wedding home designs gifted by their loving parents are ubiquitous on the Chinese Internet, gaining popularity and resonance with every “Like”. Among those are bed frames with a Microsoft logo that acts as a lamp, a virus-molecule-like structured lighting fixture, a bedroom with crowded magenta rose wallpaper and magenta bed sheets, big digitally rendered aurora flowers, and a kitchen floor fully covered with a stock image of retreating seawater and sandy beach.

Imagine cooking in this kitchen. You can almost pick the salt from the sea water.

These acts of personalizing your living room wallpaper or lighting fixtures are popular with older people from small cities in China. That, combined with their love for nature and saturated colors result in a home of digital pretense of nature.

In order to understand “mom and dad’s” unwavering belief in the aesthetic choices of these interiors, we have to put things into context and perspective. Whatever is “fashionable”, “trendy”, or “cool”, “has always to be differentiated from the mainstream.” So we have to ask: in comparison to what are these design choices cool and trendy? If we think about the older, simple countryside homes with wooden furniture and undecorated walls before the rapid urbanization and digitization of China, then all the examples I have presented exhibit an extraordinary sense and creativity in being different. They are most likely not going to be defined as refined and classic, but in terms of “coolness”, in terms of novelty, these interior designs might stand a chance, even if only within the circle of “mom and dad” or small-town folk.

Globalization and localization aren’t just buzzwords for the marketing director, they can be felt when you enter the doors of these Chinese Too Cool interiors. From replicating western architectural clusters to recapturing the essence of newfound wealth and self-expression, Chinese designs take on a life of its own. To only see the designs as tacky knockoffs would be a missed opportunity to embark on a nuanced cultural reading of Chinese thinking.

This article is an excerpt based on my essay “China Too Cool: Vernacular Innovations and Aesthetic Discontinuity of China.” In my essay, I propose Too Cool as a lens of understanding the generational and economic differences in modern China set forth by the country’s rapid urbanization. I talk about cultural productions made during the cultural revolution and right after during the economic reform of Open Door policy, cultural appropriations of Bollywood and poor copies of Japanese anime, as well as bizarre Taobao aesthetics. The overarching theme and mood is a relatable one of displacement and using creativity to regenerate meaning and identity. If this interests you, you can get a free pdf version of my essay here.

[asiaberkeley]

Pearl Buck’s Yang and Yin Circle

By Natalie Ornell

Pearl Buck interprets the yang and yin principles in her celebrated novel, The Good Earth.  Not only do yang and yin principles drive the relationship between farmer Wang Lun and his wife O-Lan, but they also define the ebb and flow of the family’s fortune.  Although nothing is written about yang and yin from Confucius’ viewpoint, Chinese philosophy expert Wing Tsit Chan attests to the overwhelming presence of the “Yin Yang doctrine” in all of Chinese civilization: “The Yin Yang doctrine is very simple but its influence has been extensive.  No aspect of Chinese civilization—whether metaphysics, medicine, government, or art—has escaped its imprint” he writes (Chan 244).  And neither does The Good Earth escape the “imprint” of yang and yin.

Yang and yin is expressed as a concept where “one” becomes the “expression of the other,” and where “both operate in cycles of rise and fall in a universal pattern, thus uniting man and Nature” (Chan 245).  Further, the yang and yin theory posits that unlucky omens accompany the decline of a nation or family, just as lucky omens accompany the rise of a family (Chan 226).    Following this tradition, Buck’s saga emphasizes the impermanence of any state of being.  Wealth and happiness never stagnate, just as poverty and misery give way.  And in all these processes, there is a fluidity that propels the life blood of the story.  Even the novel’s powerful concluding line prepares us yet again for an impending change, which because of the breakdown of filial piety in Wang Lun’s heirs, suggests the fall of the family once more.  This paper will explore Buck’s interpretation of yang and yin principles, especially through her characterization of The Good Earth’s matriarch, the enduring O-Lan.

The Good Earth opens with the sudden ascent of Wang Lun, an uneducated farmer, on his wedding day.  When he marries O-Lan, a slave, who graces his house with her exemplary cooking and cleaning, and soon bears him a coveted son, Buck portrays O-Lan as a good omen in Wang Lun’s life.  Thanks to O-Lan, Wang Lun’s status in the village rises significantly. He begins to feel blessed with fortune as O-Lan also breathes life into his family line.  Just pages into The Good Earth, Buck emphasizes Wang Lun’s near hyperbolic state of happiness.  Buck describes his feelings at the miracle of birth: “out of his own loins, life!” he feels (Buck 35).  Buck describes also Wang Lun’s newfound feeling of peace in his marriage to O-Lan, a former slave of the Great Family, who although plain, pleases him with her hard work and dedication to the land.  Chan writes about yang and yin philosophy that with the rise of any king or emperor “the force of Earth was dominant” (Chan 250). O-Lan is the catalyst who brings Wang Lung closer to the Earth and moves him to greatness.

Buck employs the language of unity to describe the couple tending the earth at the novel’s onset.  “Together this man and this woman stood before the gods of their fields.  The woman watched the ends of the incense redden and turn grey.  When the ash grew heavy she leaned over and with her forefinger she pushed the head of ash away.  Then as though fearful for what she had done, she looked quickly at Wang Lung, her eyes dumb.  But there was something he liked in her movement.  It was as though she felt that the incense belonged to them both; it was a moment of marriage” (Buck 25).  Through this bucolic imagery, as Wang Lun’s gazes on O-Lan, Buck subtly shows the innate power of Chinese women.  Wang Lun feels genuine happiness when he interprets O-Lan’s movement as one that would suggest her feeling of equality and ownership.  He even wants her to feel that the incense belongs to her as much as it does to him. Their spiritual union in connection to the land emphasizes at The Good Earth’s beginning, the influence of yang and yin.  “When yin and yang are united in their character, the weak and the strong attain their substance.  In this way the products of Heaven and Earth are given substance and the character of spiritual intelligence can be penetrated (Chan 249).  In these scenes, before the couple bears more children and grows wealthier, Wang Lun and O-Lan work together on the earth and are even rendered “speechless in their movement together,” suggesting the spiritual power that overwhelms them in working the land—a power that ushers in great success (Buck 34).    

O-Lan’s yin qualities- her quietude and submission towards Wang Lun, however, irk him indefinitely. “At night he knew the soft firmness of her body.  But in the day her clothes, her plain blue cotton coat and trousers, covered all that he knew, and she was like a faithful, speechless serving maid, who is only a serving maid and nothing more.”  Even in her first days in the house Wang Lun wishes that she would exude a more bold personality and that she would dote on him.  “He desired suddenly that she should like him as her husband and then he was ashamed (Buck 30).            However, Wang Lun soon learns, as well as the reader, that O-Lan is not at all yin.  Though she is quiet and inwardly sad, she is also strong-willed on issues she cares most about, which leads to Wang Lun’s disbelief when she displays her demanding side.  And when she demands something, O-Lan always succeeds.  For example, when Wang Lun asks her if someone from the Great House can help her in child labor, she yells out: “None in that house!” and then she describes her elaborate agenda for the ceremony that will follow the birth of her son: “When I return to that house it will be with my son in my arms.  I shall have a red coat on him and red-flowered trousers and on his head a hat with a small gilded Buddha sewn on the front and on his feet tiger-faced shoes.”  She continues to exert her agency, emphasizing that Wang Lun must pay even for her to look attractive as she displays her new son: “And I will wear new shoes and a new coat of black sateen and I will go into the kitchen where I spend my days and I will go into the great hall where the Old One sits with her opium, and I will show myself and my son to all of them.” (Buck 37).  Despite her relative silence, O-Lan emerges here as a strong demanding wife who takes pride in her reputation amongst the society she was raised and wishes to be seen with respect and admiration.  That Wang Lun acquiesces and allows her to dictate the couple’s finances and other decisions about her children for example, shows her power as a woman to exert ultimate authority in the family.

As the Hwang family declines due to the Opium crisis, Wang Lung is able to purchase land and increase his wealth considerably.  Again, the descending Hwang family and the ascending Wang family illustrate Buck’s preoccupation with the yang and yin principles. One family is extremely rich.  The other is extremely poor.  And gradually, Wang Lung switches these roles, emphasizing the fluid nature of the yang and yin circle. Once a poor man ashamed to pick up his slave bride on the Hwang Family property, he eventually buys their land before he ultimately owns their entire home—though such a transformation seems unrealistic, in doing so Buck only dramatizes the Chinese notion that all lives are in a great state of flux – and that to be rich also means one carries the capacity within to be poor, vice versa. In this most obvious reversal of wealth and class status, Buck meditates on the potential of yang and yin to direct our lives.  O-Lan rises from a homely slave to the wife of a rich landowner and the mother of educated sons.

The famine brings a harsh awakening to the family and they quickly lose their wealth, showing again the transience of their fortune.  After O-Lan must kill her girl baby during the famine, we see again the way she exerts her strength and power.  In the South when the family is forced to beg, she begs loudly, encourages the family to eat the stolen meat, and she also robs jewels for safe-keeping, suggesting that she values pragmatism and the survival of her family over Confucian morals.  When the family returns and becomes wealthy yet again, Wang Lun eventually buys a concubine and deeply pains O-Lan, who although she suffers silently, still refuses to serve the woman from the Great Hall who looks after Lotus Flower, because she values her own rise in society and will not be reminded of her slave days.  O-Lan shows herself as proud even when her husband betrays her in love.

Buck creates a climatic tension so that the reader can readily sense that decline is in store at any point where the family enjoys excessive fortune.  This decline manifests itself in Wang Lun’s sexual self, which surfaces after he joins the ranks of the rich.  As Buck posits in her Times article, Chinese women live a separate life from men in all ways and an unequal life in the field of romance.  This field is far more important in a man’s life.  It is through the field of romance, specifically that Wang Lun, rich and lustful, loses respect for his faithful wife, O-Lan. Wang Lun’s wealth soon brings with it an even stronger lust for beautiful women, and his shame towards O-Lan’s ugliness becomes more visceral, suggesting that he no longer values her contributions in the way he first did when they married.  He even resents touching her rough hands at her deathbed towards the novel’s end showing the corrupting influence of the family’s wealth over the pure love of the earth.

In The Good Earth, Pearl Buck’s directs the entire novel with her interpretation of yang and yin in everyday Chinese life.  Despite O-Lan’s mistreatment at the hands of her husband, she shows too, the power O-Lan maintains because of yang and yin. All the women in the novel, from O-Lan, to the Great Lady, to Lotus and Cuckoo, enjoy some authority in the world they inhabit together with their male counterparts.  O-Lan’s decisions matter and greatly affect the course of events especially through her husband’s rise to wealth.  It is because of her stolen jewels, that Wang Lun rises to wealth once again.  When he gives his concubine O-Lan’s two pearls, we see him at his worst. Although Buck writes that women do not enjoy equality in the field of romance, O-Lan’s gentle power is a force that determines largely the life of her husband.  Though he does her no justice, O-Lan lives to see her sons married and finds peace in her death.  Although Wang Lun looks down upon her flesh, he still finds love for her deep within him.  And though he finds Lotus Flower the pinnacle of beauty, he soon sees her ugliness.  The Good Earth instills in us the essence of Chinese philosophy: all things are in flux.  What is black can become white, and what is white can become black. For all along both sides carried within them the potential to change into the other.

[floatingeye]

THE GRANDMASTER / YI DAI ZONG SHI (2013)

Dir: Wong Kar Wai

Hong Kong, 130m

THE 64 EMPTY HAND MOVES (RED BOAT OPERA)

Surely, this is a compromised film. Years in the making, and has one foot in the blockbuster league which means it has to address a wide audience, satisfy investors and make a healthy recoup—in the Chinese market, it did. What both these mean is that Kar Wai had to set up artificial limits to his vision, then swim to real ones, limits he cares to meet as an artist, then see how swiftly he can move back and forth. But let's not mince words here. Kar Wai is a cinematic master. And I'm sure I will remember this as one of the most interesting, most wonderful, most visual films of the year come December. Right off the bat, you should know that if you want the clean, rousing version of Ip Man you should go to the Donnie Yen films. It's a legend anyhow, most martial arts stories are (especially the Chinese), embellished in the telling. So if you want 'truth', you're looking in the wrong place to begin with. About Ip Man, you should know that the fighting style he is supposed to have originated called wing chun, at least as taught now, takes some old Taoist notions about softness and intuited flow and creates a uselessly complicated and scholastic system of study. But the notions are powerful, and this is likely what attracted Kar Wai to a film about him. So the artificial limits here are the kung fu movie, a type of narrative deeply embedded in the national character. So we get familiar history as the backdrop, Civil War, Japanese invasion and so forth. The film will be familiarly lush and operatic for the Chinese. It also means we get fights, we do—some marvelous ones. It means we get the heroic portrait—the good vs evil sifus, tied to contrasted history, tied to the passing of tradition. The kungfu plot revolves around preserving the secret 64 moves and avenging the old master's death, usual tropes in this type of film. But he sets all this up in order to break it, that's what Ip Man's talk about breaking the cake represents in his standoff with the old master of the northern school, contrasted to his belief that it should be whole—metaphorically referring to a strong, unified China, the same obsession with fabricated harmony that powers both the political and martial arts narratives over there. This is what Kar Wai does, he breaks the harmonies. Not so much in the fights: Kar Wai plays with them like a master painter fools with paint in commissioned work. He plays with speeds, textures and choreographed impacts but does not radically push the language like he did in Ashes. Ashes really was a radical break in temporal experience, wonderful stuff with many layers. Here, we experience fights cleanly, in a way that will satisfy the broad audience. He breaks the heroic narrative: in his worldview, time does not linearly build to the 'big fight', it happens with one third of the film to go and Ip Man is not in it, what should have been a dramatic death happens offscreen, history is glimpsed off the streets, we get flashbacks and forwards, abstraction and long visual poetry. And the 64 moves are never passed on. All that fooling with structure is a way of loosening limits of genre and tradition, inherited limits to vision. But what is really worth it here, is watch him swim to meet his own limits—multilayered reflection on memory as living space for the eye. In martial arts terms, that means soft, yielding to inner pull, to the hardness of fights, politics and quasi-mythical narrative. It means every hard narrative thrust in the name of tradition, country or lineage, becomes an anchor he uses to submerge me in visual exploration of feelings. In visitation of spaces of desire, flows. Sure, it is not as successful as previous projects, because the fancy fights and exotic settings get in the way, jarring me from a tangible experience. But it's still pretty much the same wonderful swimming, each thrust of the hand creating turbulent patterns in water. For instance, the daughter waiting in the train station to avenge the old master is the anchor. But between that first shot and the decisive encounter, we get a wonderful current of images; cooking smoke at night, snow, refracted light through windows, children running. These are not of the story, but snow flakes of remembrance the air drags in. The cut from statues of Buddha to grainy footage of bustling Hong Kong is one of the most thunderous edits I've seen. And the entire last third of the film is purely a Kar Wai film; all about unrequited yearnings, ashes of youth in a gilded box. So spliced inside the kung fu comic-book is a sort of Mood for Love where again we had the contrast to 'hard' fabrication in the writer of kung fu stories. It is muddled, because you can't have crispness when the whole point is a fluid recall. Tarkovsky is 'muddled'. But it's so lovely overall. The coveted moves as the excuse for the man and woman to meet attempting touch, the Taoist pushing and yielding of hands to be close. They are empty hand forms, in that there is nothing to be grasped beyond the shared flow. It is all about cultivating sensitivity, listening, placement in space.

★★★★☆

[hriobzagelthewanderer]

[continued from here with @sins-of-the-sea]

The Fae frowns, then sighs as he shakes his head. Clearly, there was more healing to be done than merely the physical, and he was not yet in a position to offer that freely, not with the Gilded One in the sate he was now. Instead, he speaks, openly and gently, honestly and calmly.

"Now now, Gio... I have my limits just as your Master does, you know better than anyone else of the Seven how that sort of thing works. The same protections that keep Gorgos from finding and claiming his eye will block me all the same, for similar if different reasons. All I can do is offer you means and tools to do the job more easily yourself, at best."

A wave of the hand, and - as if by magic - for indeed it was - and a calming, warm cup of herbal tea on a saucer of fine gold-plated china, one paired with it appearing in his other hand held out towards Gio.

"...I cannot do this for you, just as he cannot. We are mirrors of each other, in truth, though not by design so much as by choice: We have similar domains but different methods, different solutions to similar problems, and opposing views on the same issues of Fate and Identity... you knew well that I would have my own grievances with him, just as he has no love for me, when you accepted my offer... But remember this, if nothing else... Gorgos may rely on you, but you know just as much as any of your crew that he sees you as expendable all the same... I have no such reliance, and yet...?"

He pauses, introspective, eyes gazing into the surface of his beverage... colors flitting across his normally grey eyes, as visages and past lives flicker across the dull liquid mirror in memoriam... every life he'd ever lived, and yet here he was again. Who was he, really, but a reflection caught in a hall of mirrors - each permutation more distorted and distant from the last?

"...whatever quarrel I have with the Master does not carry over to you or the other Six, nor any you all care for. He may try to convince you otherwise, that you have no choice and no other value or options... but you always have options. All humans, all souls, all people have value... why else would He hoard them - hoard you - with so miserly a grip? I merely prefer investment to hoarding, people to tools... after all, a Tool is only as good as its wielder, and Gorgos has shown how unimaginative he can be for all his cunning... a Person, on the other hand... is free to be more than that, for better or worse... and unlike your Master I am more of a gambling sort myself... though the wagers I favor are no mere chance... question is, what will you do... will you accept being a mere pawn, or wager on a greater future as a Man?"

[tipsycad147]

The ULTIMATE Amazon Witchy Shopping List for the Holidays 2018

Looking for the perfect gift for that witchy woman or magical man in your life? Are you also an Amazon shopping fiend? I must confess, I love the convenience of adding items to my wish list for later purchase, PLUS the free 2-day shipping Amazon offers. Here I’ve compiled the ULTIMATE list of Amazon witchy gifts for the holidays including the most coveted tarot and oracle card decks, new non-fiction and fiction witchcraft books, crystal must-haves, tea and tea accessories, AND modern kitchen witch gadgets. Add them to your Amazon shopping cart or wish list for easy witchy shopping this holiday season!

DISCLOSURE: I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website. Your purchase helps support my work in bringing you information about the paranormal and paganism.

Amazon Witchy Shopping List

What will be covered in the Ultimate Amazon Witchy Shopping List:

Divination Wish List

Crystal Must-Haves

Non-Fiction Witchcraft Books – New Releases

Fiction Witchy Books – New Releases

Teas and Tea Accessories

Modern Kitchen Witch Gadgets

Divination Wish List

1. The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck

The same artist who created the Wild Unknown Tarot, a popular Tarot deck, has recently released the Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck. The artwork is gorgeous and the vibe is amazing. It’s probably already on your loved one’s witchy wish list.

2. Mystical Shaman Oracle Cards

The artwork on the Mystical Shaman Oracle Cards is enough to want this deck. Nevermind the amazing earthy, peaceful vibes exuding from it! If that isn’t enough to draw you in, what about the 400+ 5-star rating on Amazon? Most oracle decks don’t get that kind of rave review. This deck is all about ancient sacred symbols, archetypes, and collective consciousness. The perfect witchy gift for the holidays!

3. Lapis Lazuli Rune Stone Set

Not only is a rune stone set a wonderful thing to have, but make it a lapis lazuli rune stone set and the witchy woman in your life will love you forever! Lapis lazuli is a stone connected with the third eye and ancient ancestors and so makes the perfect material for a rune set. The runes are one form of divination every Norse or Celtic witch should learn to use.

4. The Fountain Tarot

Released in October of 2017, The Fountain Tarot by Jason Gruhl and Jonathan Saiz is highly rated by Amazon witches. The silver-gilded and rounded corner cards featured beautiful oil paintings created by artist Saiz. Pick up the deck with the guidebook and watch your witch go ga-ga this Yule season!

Crystal Must-Haves

1. Healing Crystal Wands

This specific set of crystal wands has been on my witchy shopping list on Amazon for quite some time, and I’m hoping someone gets the gist! For 25 bucks, how can you go wrong with four 2″ crystal wands? The essential stones are included: rose quartz, clear quartz, obsidian, and amethyst. This set makes a great starter stone set for beginners. Add it to your Wiccan supplies list or purchase it now and save it for the holidays.

2. Best Amethyst Cluster 1/2 to 1 lb.

Who doesn’t want a huge piece of amethyst in their bedroom? Box and wrap up this large amethyst cluster for that crystal lover in your life. Then tell them to place it on their nightstand for soothing, connected dreams this holiday season.

3. Crystal Elixir Bottle

I’ve seen these all over FaceBook and social media and have heard good things so far. The crystal elixir bottle allows you to drink crystal-infused water anywhere and everywhere. Super-charged water on the go!

4. Himalayan Salt Lamp

If you or the witch in your life doesn’t have a Himalayan Salt Lamp, time to get one. Or add another to the collection. The Himalayan salt lamp cleanses the air of negative vibes and lets off a very soothing light wherever its lit.

Witchy Non-Fiction New Release Books

1. The Illustrated Herbiary

The Illustrated Herbiary: Guidance and Rituals from 36 Bewitching Botanicals by Maia Toll and Kate O’Hara was released in August of 2018 and has already received rave reviews from the Amazon witchy shopping community. In addition to having an illustrated guide to magical plants, a deck of small cards comes with the hardback book. A must-have for the green or garden witch’s collection.

2. Colouring Book of Shadows: Planner for Magical 2019

Alright, who doesn’t love to colour? Colouring is therapy for the soul. Even better if you can plan out your schedule and then colour at the same time. It makes magical planning that much more fun! Add a colouring book of shadows and a pack of coloured pencils to your witchy shopping cart for the holidays and the receiver won’t be disappointed.

3. The House Witch

From the author of The Green Witch comes the next in her practical series The House Witch by Arin Murphy-Hiscock. The release date is November 20, 2018, just in time for Yule and Christmas! Learn how to create a magical sacred space with rituals and charms for the home.

4. Familiars in Witchcraft

An exciting new release set for 2019 written by Maja D’Aoust all about familiars and magical spiritual assistants from all over the world. Familiars aren’t just a fluffy household pet – they’re much much more than that. This is explored in depth in this book…pre-order for your witchy loved one!

5. In the Shadow of Salem

In the Shadow of Salem: The Andover Witch Hunt of 1692 is a historical account of another piece of the Salem Witch Trials’ mystery. Written by a scholar and archivist, In the Shadow of Salem details familial rivalries and reveals another aspect of the witch hunt craze in Colonial America that hasn’t been discussed in detail until now. If your witchy loved one is in to historical accounts of witchcraft, this book is a must-have for the holiday season!

New Release Fictional Witchy Books

1. The Cotton Family Series

The Cotton Family Series is one of those witchy fictional series that every witch would love. Real tidbits of American and European folk magic are woven in to a tale of the paranormal, witchcraft, and love to make for a wild ride of a read! Ancient Spirits, Book 3 of The Cotton Family Series has been released and is waiting for eager witchy eyes! The perfect witchy shopping gift for the holidays.

2. Only the Stars Know Her Name

Only the Stars Know Her Name by Amanda Marrone is a historical fiction book about the lost daughter of Tituba, an accused Salem witch. Set to be released next year in hardback, pre-order as a witchy shopping holiday must-have!

3. Sea Witch

Sea Witch by Sarah Henning is described as “Wicked” meets “The Little Mermaid”. Any lover of the ocean and of witchy fictional books will love Sea Witch this holiday season. Add it to your witchy shopping cart!

4. Circe

I’ve been drawn to the Greek Goddess Circe for years, and this book by Madeline Miller made me fall even more in love with this goddess! A #1 New York Times Bestseller with good reason, you can purchase this book as a paperback, e-book, or even as an audiobook (which I fully recommend!) Entertainment and mythology together in a sweet gift.

5. Witches of New Orleans Series

I can’t help but adore any witchy story set in New Orleans. What a magical place to base a series of witchy books. This series by JD Horn is a fun, magical read and the newest in the series is set to be released in June of 2019. Purchase the first two and pre-order the third!

Teas & Accessories

1. Heavenly Tea Leaves Tea Sampler

If that magical person in your life is an herb or tea lover, grab him or her a tea sampler off of Amazon like this Heavenly Tea Leaves Tea Sampler. Great tea for a great price this holiday season!

2. Butterfly Pea Flower Tea

I recently started drinking this tea because of its beautiful blue colour. Not to mention, add a slice of lemon to it and the blue turns to purple! Magic in a teacup. One of my favourite loose leaf teas!

3. The Lotus Glass Tea Tumbler

One of my favorite witchy holiday gifts was a loose leaf tea infuser. But even better is one that’s portable with sacred geometry on the sides. Tea with a divine vibe!

4. Adagio Teas Bottom-Dispensing Teapot

Every witch needs a bottom-dispensing teapot. Convenient and easy to use for magical brews and teas. Strains the leaves right out for you, so no more picking the leaves out of your teeth.

5. Teabloom Flowering Teas

The prettiest teas around are the flowering teas. Get a clear flowering tea teapot and then the Teabloom flowering teas to go along with it. What a wonderful witchy gift idea!

Housewares for the Kitchen Witch

1. Herb Scissors

A super efficient way to break up dried herbs in the kitchen is with a pair of sharp herb scissors. These are a must-have for any kitchen witch this holiday season and make a perfect stocking stuffer (just make sure to leave it in the packaging!)

2. Ninja Ultra Prep Food Processor

Make a magical basil pesto, energizing fruit shakes, or grind up some herbs with the ultra prep food processor. Every kitchen witch needs the ability to quickly grind ingredients down. Add this to your witchy shopping cart for the holidays.

3. Mortar and Pestle

In addition to using a mortar and pestle to grind down peppercorns and other hard herbs, it can also be used to make red brick dust and cascarilla powders. A marble mortar and pestle is a kitchen witch must-have. Get him or her one as an amazing gift.

4. Stand Mixer

I don’t know about you but when the holidays come around, I am a baking machine! It would be much easier to save my hands and have a stand mixer in the kitchen. Every baking kitchen witch could use a sturdy and pretty stand mixer like the kitchenaid!

5. Instant Pot

For the kitchen witches who don’t have time to cook over an open fire, the instant pot is a wonderful present that won’t be forgotten. A witchy shopping must-have! It’s a crock pot on steroids! A pressure cooker that cooks soups and stews, hard-boiled eggs, and other yummy meals in little to no time at all! And Amazon usually has a great deal on instant pots over the holiday season.

https://otherworldlyoracle.com/amazon-witchy-shopping-list/

[theconservativebrief]

Sir James Dyson and his eponymous company, best known for its vacuums, have in recent years made waves in the beauty world with the futuristic-looking Dyson hair dryer. While both products are pricey, colorful, hyper-engineered, and interesting to look at, neither is inherently a glamorous item. This week, though, the company one-upped its own showmanship and announced that it will release a Dyson Supersonic hair dryer that’s literally gilded with 23.75-karat gold leaf, which will sell for $499.99.

While the news has not been reported widely yet, people have been receiving word from the company via their inboxes. And they have thoughts. Twitter user @FannyLawren wrote: “Who needs a gold hair dryer? No one. But the Celebrities and Crazy Rich Asians may want it. Good gimmick! @Dyson #MarketingStrategy #luxurylifestyle.” User @kylethepeck was a bit less diplomatic.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Dyson products, but nothing says “I’m a rich asshole who doesn’t know how to spend my money” like a real gold plated hair dryer. pic.twitter.com/SYkTUBqFtA

— Kyle Peck (@kylethepeck) August 27, 2018

$500 seems an eye-popping sum for a hair tool until you understand that the company’s regular, non-golden hair dryer, which launched in the fall of 2016, costs $399.99. And there’s a version engineered for professional hairstylists that is $449.99.

So how did the market for a luxury-priced golden hair dryer come about? It has to do with savvy marketing, the power of celebrity, and a certain viral photo of a chicken.

An artisan applying gold leaf to a Dyson hair dryer. Dyson

Dyson, which is worth $5.3 billion, is well known in design circles and makes a splash any time it launches a new product because the company is great at dramatic rollouts. But the Dyson hair dryer made a huge impression because the hot hair tool space is a pretty insular market that doesn’t often see new brands. (T3, Conair, GHD, Hot Tools, Chi, Babyliss, and a handful of others dominate.) And because it upended traditional hair dryer design in a way the stalwarts hadn’t.

Instead of the motor being encased on top right near the nozzle, which contributes to the top-heaviness of traditional dryers, Dyson put a small motor in the handle. The nozzle is doughnut-shaped, complete with a hole in the middle, and has a squat, sawed-off feel. This makes the Supersonic dryer lighter, quieter, and more ergonomic — plus it looks like something you’d find in a Star Trek movie.

While the design is new, tricking out the tool in a metallic finish is not. Since there’s very little that can be done to fundamentally change a blow dryer design-wise, companies have long driven sales by changing colors and finishes instead to match whatever is trending in fashion. Metallic finishes have been popular for a few years, especially rose gold — though Dyson might be the first to literally cover the thing in a precious metal.

According to a press release, accompanied by an admittedly fascinating video, Dyson enlisted the help of a traditional guilder, a craft that dates back 4,000 years, to hand-apply 23.75-karat gold leaf — a very specific karat weight chosen by James himself — onto the nozzle. A bright red primer is applied first and then the gold leaf brushed on top, so that when it wears down, the red shows through. The carrying case matches the red primer, and the rest of the dryer is non-gilded royal blue. The whole thing is emblematic of Dyson’s typical messaging: We are extra in everything we do.

Dyson is not the first company to offer ultra-expensive hair dryers, but it is the first that cracked the mainstream in a meaningful way, thanks to the brand’s impression of mystique and its skill in getting its products into the right hands. For several years, Babyliss has offered a hair dryer that boasts a Ferrari motor. In 2010, it cost $400 (versus the more typical $35 to $150 for a regular dryer); now it’s less than $200. But that has always been niche.

Dyson’s biggest pricey competitor since it’s launched has arguably been the Harry Josh dryer. Josh is a well-respected celebrity and fashion hair stylist who’s worked with Vogue and tons of celebrities, including Jennifer Garner and Gwyneth Paltrow. He released his signature mint green dryer in 2013 for $300. At the time, it was lighter and faster than anything on the market, and beloved by pros and beauty editors alike. The original now goes for $249. The brand then released an even lighter version, after the original Dyson launched, that costs $349.

The Harry Josh dryer is still in limited retail distribution, but the Dyson is available more broadly at Sephora, Ulta, Nordstrom, Best Buy, and Bed Bath & Beyond and has spread beyond a small, loyal audience.

Dyson understands the aspirational nature of the beauty industry and has been strategic about getting its tools into the right hands (and heads). Early on, it partnered with hairstylist Jen Atkin, who is the founder of the uber-popular Ouai line of hair care products.

Atkin has 2.5 million Instagram followers, a number she amassed partly because of her famous and social media-savvy clients like Chrissy Teigen and various Kardashian-Jenner and Hadid sisters. She shares pictures of both her clients and the hair dryer frequently. With all the sharing and regramming, as well as the Dyson’s inherent Instagram-friendliness, the dryer soon became well known.

Dyson also partnered with (read: paid) other hairstylists to use the tool on their A-list celebrity clients at high wattage events like the Met Gala and the Golden Globes. This has been a common practice with makeup and hair care brands for years. The brands work with artists, then send the beauty press detailed breakdowns of red-carpet looks, complete with specific product information, which end up in stories like this one and, brands hope, will convince consumers to buy the lipstick that Janelle Monae wore that one time.

It’s less common for tool companies to do this because while you can swipe a lipstick on yourself pretty easily to “get the look,” a red-carpet hairdo requires the expertise of a stylist — the tool isn’t the only consideration. But Dyson did it anyway.

For this year’s Met Gala in May, hairstylists used Dyson dryers on Kim Kardashian West, Rihanna, Cardi B, Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Evan Rachel Wood, and Solange Knowles. At the Golden Globes in January, they were used on Emma Stone, Claire Foy, and Gal Gadot.

Press releases were dutifully sent around after the events. The dryer made it into an Instagram Lady Gaga posted of herself before her performance at the 2017 Super Bowl, though that seems to have been an organic and inadvertent shoutout to the dryer. The brand doesn’t share its sales data, but this surely raised awareness.

The weirdest and most delightful part of the brand’s journey to stardom came in May. Helen Rosner, the New Yorker’s food correspondent, tweeted a picture of herself pointing her Dyson dryer at a raw chicken.

The caption read “Happy snow day, I am using an astonishingly expensive hair dryer to remove all moisture from a chicken to maximize skin crispiness when I roast it.” The image went viral, prompting Rosner to write a full post on the practice to clarify that she was not, in fact, using the dryer to cook the chicken.

As the Verge meticulously documented, a full news cycle ensued. The popular press, food press, and beauty press all covered the story. And Dyson loved the attention:

Engineered to not overheat your hair… or your chicken

— Dyson (@Dyson) March 21, 2018

This is the question everyone asks. In my experience, it really is better, and more comfortable to hold, than every other hair dryer I’ve tried — and I’ve tried a lot because for several years it was my job as a beauty editor to try them. (Disclosure: The brand sent me one for free when it launched two years ago.)

If mine broke, I would absolutely pay full price for another one, and, indeed, I’ve considered buying the white version because I like it better than the fuchsia one I have. But as with any purchase, worth and value are subjective, as Rosner notes.

“The Dyson does what I want it to do — it’s faster and quieter than any other dryer I’ve used, which is important to me, because I worry about hearing loss — and while it wasn’t exactly an impulse purchase, its price didn’t put me in a position of hardship. So for me, it was worth it,” she tells me via email. “But for someone who might have a different relationship with their bank account, it might not be. There are very few things in life that are worth going into debt for, and a hair dryer — even a great one — absolutely isn’t one of them.”

People inherently pass judgment on things used by a traditionally female cohort, especially when it’s perceived to be something for vanity. Lizzie Plaugic pointed this out in her Verge article, and Rosner expounds on it.

“I find it indescribably frustrating that it’s considered frivolous for a person to spend a few hundred dollars to have the best possible version of something that she uses every single day. How many people have a $500 handbag that they’ve only carried half a dozen times, or an $800 camera that only comes out once a year for vacations?” she says. “Even the Dyson vacuum itself is considered an aspirational product — something people covet! They get excited about it! And it’s even more expensive than the hair dryer! It’s an inconsistency that speaks to the fundamental way we discredit and devalue women’s aesthetic care.”

Dyson himself is absolutely unapologetic about the price point. He once told me in an interview, “I don’t design down to a price. I design what I think is a good product that will last. Of course, that’s not a very commercial attitude because it costs rather a lot to make.”

Covering the dryer in gold doesn’t affect how it works; it’s merely gilding the lily (or the hair tool, in this case). Still, for a product whose rise has relied so heavily on social media, that extra certainly can’t hurt.

Original Source -> Dyson’s new $500 golden hair dryer, explained

via The Conservative Brief

[zillowcondo]

Things to Do in Funchal, Madeira

The capital city of Madeira is blessed with year round sunshine, many historical attractions and some great restaurants. From cool rooftop bars to beautiful botanical gardens and fascinating museums, there’s something for everyone. Here are 17 things to do in Funchal, Madeira that you really shouldn’t miss.

Things to do in Funchal, Madeira

These Funchal attractions are listed alphabetically, to help you to find the ones best suited to your interests. The city of Funchal is very clean and safe. It can get busy when the cruise ships are in port but if you head off the main streets then you can easily find uncrowded sights to enjoy. The name Funchal comes from the word for fennel, funcho.

CR7 Museum

Perhaps the most famous person born in Funchal is Cristiano Ronaldo. He currently lives in Madrid but ut still has close links to the island.  The Museu CR7 opened in 2013 and tells the story of his rise to success. It houses all 126 individual and team trophies won by the football legend. Next to the museum, there’s the 4 star Pestana CR7 Hotel, with a rooftop bar, infinity pool and outdoor hot pool. Hotel guests get free access to the CR7 Museum, and there’s a restaurant open to non residents. A statue of Cristiano Ronaldo, created by Ricardo Velosa in 2014, can be found on the side of the building that faces the marina.

Museum opening times:  10.00 – 18.00, Mondays to Saturdays. Closed on Sundays and 25 December

Restrooms available

Refreshments available

Design Centre Nini Andrade Silva

Housed inside the imposing Nossa Senhora da Conceicao fortress at the far end of Funchal Marina, the Design Centre Nini Andrade Silva is well worth a visit. The fort was once the home of Portugese explorer Joao Goncalves Zarco, who colonized Madeira in the 15th century.

Many of the attractions in Funchal are quite traditional so the modern designs on display here make an interesting contrast. The museum is the brainchild of Nina Andrade, who is a renowned Portugese designer. It showcases her work on hotels, universities and private residences as well as her furniture and jewellery pieces. There’s a stylish bar with indoor seating and an outdoor terrace with fantastic sea views, as well as a small shop. The highlight is the restaurant, DC Atelier, located on the top floor. It specializes in seasonal produce and contemporary Atlantic cooking. The decor would not look out of place in Vogue magazine, with comfy sofas and superb sea views.

Design Centre opening times: 10.00-23.00

Restrooms available

Refreshments available

Doca do Cavacas

One of the best hidden gems in Madeira, Doca do Cavacas is a natural rock pool where you can sunbathe and swim, with direct sea access. This secret Funchal spot is popular with locals and you can also walk through the tunnel to the nearby rocky Praia Formosa beach. The natural rock pools are extremely picturesque, though you’ll find them chilly for bathing out of season. There are changing rooms and a shower, as well as a little snack bar. The pools are supervised by a life guard. Overlooking the pools and part of the same complex is one of the best seafood restaurants in Madeira.

Opening times: 10.00 – 20.00, Monday to Sunday

Restrooms available

Refreshments available

Funchal Cable Car

To get your bearings in Funchal, we highly recommend a trip on Funchal Cable car to Monte. The journey time to the top of Monte parish takes from 15-20 minutes and the cable cars seat a maximum of 7 people. Along the way, there are great views of the sea and red tiled rooftops. You can buy tickets at the information centre on Caminho das Babosas or at Monte station. There’s a free exhibition on lace making that’s also worth a look.

Opening times: 9.00-17.45, 364 days a year

Return fares: Adults 16 €, child aged 7-12 years 8 €, child aged 0-6 years free

Suitable for: all ages

Restrooms available

Refreshments: available at the kiosks a few minutes away

Funchal Cathedral

Sé Catedral was built in the 15th century and is located in the heart of Funchal Old Town on Rua do Aljube. The cathedral of Funchal has an orrnate ceiling carved from local cedar wood,

Opening times: 07.30-12.00 and 16.00-19.00. Group visits: Daily from 09.00-11.00 and 16.00-17.30 Mass: 08.00, 08.30, 11.15 and 18.00 on weekdays. Sundays at 08.00, 09.00, 11.00, 17.00 and 18.15

Funchal Lido

Popular with locals and tourists alike, Funchal Lido has a fantastic location overlooking the Mediterranean sea. The Lido holds the coveted Blue Flag badge symbolizing environmental quality. There are several salt water outdoor pools, a solarium and plenty of lounging areas next to the rocks. Directly above the lido on Rua do Gorgulho there’s a cafe where you can get light meals and snacks.

Opening times: daily from 8:30 to 20:00 

Price: Adult: 5.00€; Young: 1.80€; Children (0-10) – free

Restrooms available

Accessible to those with reduced mobility – wheelchairs available

Funchal Marina

Funchal Marina is a lovely place for a stroll. There are several bars and restaurants along the water’s edge. It opened 20 years ago and has space for 210 yachts, as well as fuel stations, water and electricity supplies and nautical shops. If you’re visiting the island in June, don’t miss the fireworks display here each Saturday night. Part of the Atlantic Festival, the shows are free to watch and very impressive. A different fireworks team competes each week with the public voting on their favourite.

Funchal Toboggan

Perhaps the most iconic of all Funchal sights are the Monte toboggans. They have been in operation since the early 19th century and are handmade from wicker and wood. After taking a seat in the wicker basket next to Nossa Senhora do Monte Church, you’ll be whisked 2 kilometres down the hill by two carreiros. These men are dressed in white and wear straw boater hats, using their rubber soled boots to brake. The ride is surprisingly comfortable but it’s definitely exhilarating! The toboggan steerers guide the basket around the winding roads and past traffic intersections with expert skill. It’s perfectly safe as there are fellow workers giving the all clear at each junction. When you reach the finishing point at Livramento, there’s a cafe and shop. Either take a bus down or a cab but make sure that their meter is switched on.

Opening times: Monday to Saturday – 9.00-18.00, Sunday – 9.00-13.00 (prior reservation required). Closed on 1 January, 14 and 15 August, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and 25 December. 

Price: 25 € for 1 person, 30 € for 2 people and 45 € for 3 people. Children under 5 years old go free.

Suitable for: all ages, however the ride is quite bumpy

Restrooms available

Refreshments: at Livramento finishing point

  Igreja de São João Evangelista

The Church of St. John the Evangelist is a striking combination of Baroque and Mannerist style, dating from the 1600s. There are several carved, gilded chapels, decorative azulejos tiles, frescoes and ceiling paintings. Outside the church, you’ll see a black and white mosaic pavement in the shape of waves, that is traditional in Madeira. There’s also an unusual planter in a pair of jeans, highlighting the island’s efforts at ecological conservation.

Igreja do Socorro

If you walk all the way up Rua de Santa Maria, you’ll eventually come to Largo do Socorro and Igreja do Socorro. This attractive clifftop church on Socorro Square was rebuilt in 1750 after the original was destroyed in an earthquake.

Located in Socorro Square, this church is related with a pledge made by the people of Funchal to Saint James because of an outbreak of plague that occurred in the island in 1523.

Inside, there are traditional azulejos tiles, a painted ceiling and a gilded altar.

Opening times: Monday to Saturday – 09.30-12.00 and 15.00-18.00, Sundays from 09.00-12.00

Mass: Tuesdays and Thursdays at 18.00, Saturdays at 17.30 and Sundays at 10.00

Madeira Casino

Casino da Madeira is a design classic, created by famous architect Oscar Niemeyer in 1970. Its distinctive shape is said to resemble a volcanic cauldron. Located next to the Pestana Casino Park, it’s a fun place to go at night when the rooftop is lit up. There’s live music at Copacabana nightclub and dinner shows every Thursday at Bahia Restaurant.

Opening times:  Sunday to Thursday – 15.00-3.00, Friday, Saturday and holiday eves’ – 16.00-4.00. Closed – 24-25 December

Suitable for: people aged over 18 years old. Those under 18 years old are allowed to access the Bahia Restaurant

Restrooms available

Refreshments: Bahia Restaurant, Palm Bar and Rio Restaurant

Mercado dos Lavradores

The Farmers’ Market in Funchal is known as Mercado dos Lavradores. Located on Rua Latino Coelho 38, it is popular with locals and tourists alike. Designed by Edmundo Tavares, it opened in 1940. As you enter the market there are two beautiful tiled wall murals by João Rodrigues. Inside, the market stalls are spread over 2 floors. On the top there are herb and spice sellers as well as gifts whilst on the ground floor there are fruit, vegetables, fish and some casual eateries. Quite a few of the stall holders wear the red traditional Madeira cap.

Opening times: Monday to Thursday – 8.00-19.00,  Friday – 7.00-20.00, Saturday – 7.00-14.00, closed on Sundays and public holidays

Restrooms available

Lift to upper floor

Refreshments: several eateries inside and a tapas restaurant directly in front

Monte Palace Tropical Garden

Madeira is known for its stunning floral displays and we’d highly recommend a visit to Monte Palace Tropical Garden. Located at the top of Funchal Cable car, it’s a lovely excursion from Funchal. Inside the garden there are some beautiful plant displays, spread over 70.000 square meters. A collection of over 1,000 African tribal sculptures, African Passion, is also well worth a look. The Mother Nature’s Secrets exhibition displays one of the best private collections of minerals.

One of the most interesting characteristics of the Monte Palace Tropical Garden is the existence of a large collection of tile panels placed along the walkways and amongst the vegetation acquired by José Berardo, under the specialist direction of Manuel Leitão. This collection, considered to be one of the most important in the country after that of the National Tile Museum, is made up of Hispano-Moorish tiles of the 15th and 16th centuries and panels produced in Portugal from the 19th to the 20th centuries.

Head down the shady pathways, admiring the traditional Hispano-Moorish tiles and you’ll come to Monte Palace. Dating from 1897, it was previously a hotel. There are great views of Funchal from here. The Japanese inspired section of the garden directly below the palace is a pleasure to behold.

Opening times: 9.30-18.00 for the garden, 10.00-16.30 for the museum, every day except 25 December

Price: 12.50 € for adults, free for children under 15 if accompanied by adults

Entrance gates and ticket booths: Caminho das Babosas, 4A (Entrada Junto ao Teleférico), Caminho das Babosas, 4 (Entrada Norte) Caminho do Monte, 174 (Entrada Este) – closed on weekends

Guided tours to the Museum: no extra charge but must be pre-booked and they are only available to groups

Restrooms available

Refreshments: coffee shop near entrance inside

Shop on Caminho das Babosas

Rua de Santa Maria

One of the most Instagrammable Funchal attractions is along Rua de Santa Maria. Known as the Painted Doors area, it features many colourful building entrances. Thanks to the Open Doors Art Project, local artists have transformed Rua de Santa Maria and the surrounding alleys with colorful designs. From Madeiran folk scenes to contemporary murals, there is much to admire. You’ll find many restaurants and gift shops along the street too.

Opening times: all day for the doors. Restaurants and shops from lunchtime to late evening. 

Sao Tiago Fortress

Painted a striking shade of ochre yellow, Sao Tiago Fortress is a cheerful sight. It was built in 1614 to protect Funchal from pirates. It was used by the military until 1992 when the Regional Government of Madeira The Contemporary Art Museum is housed inside, together with a popular restaurant specializing in Madeiran food, Restaurante Do Forte.

Opening times: Monday to Friday, 9.00-12.30, 14.00-17.30. Closed on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays

Restrooms available

Refreshments available

The Vine Hotel Rooftop Bar

One of the best hotels in Funchal, The Vine has a fantastic rooftop bar. Decorated in a contemporary style with a dipping pool and comfy bean bags, 360⁰Sky & Poolside Bar is a great place to savour a cocktail. There’s also an al fresco restaurant which it’s advisable to book.

Madeira Wine Museum

The island of Madeira is famous for its distinctive fortified wine. Production of wine on the island dates back to the 15th century. Blandy’s is one of the best known rum producers and Blandy’s Wine Lodge on Aveniga Arriaga 28 boasts the oldest wine cellars in Madeira. They date from the 17th and 18th centuries. There’s an interesting collection of vintage wines, machinery and other objects relating to winemaking.

Opening times: Monday – Friday: 10am – 6.30pm ; Saturday: 10am – 1pm, closed on Sunday and public holidays

Price: Free

Restrooms available

Funchal Restaurants

There are some fantastic restaurants in Funchal. Here are a few that we have personally tried and would recommend:

Amazem do Sal – one of the best restaurants in Funchal, located in a former salt cellar

Beef and Wines – try the unlimited picanha beef, sliced at your table

DC Atelier – modern Atlantic cooking in a historic fortress

Jaquet – great seafood in a hole in the wall restaurant on Rua de Santa Maria

O Calhau – Mediterranean dishes and a pleasant outdoor terrace in Funchal Old Town

Restaurante Dos Combatentes – traditional Madeiran cooking

Restaurante Riso, Risottoria Del Mundo – risotto with a fantastic view of the Atlantic

Getting to Funchal

Funchal Airport, officially named Cristiano Ronaldo Madeira International Airport (FNC) is located just 22 kilometres from Funchal centre. The journey time takes around 25 minutes by rental car or taxi.

Day Trips from Funchal

Cabo Girao

Dolphin and whale watching

Levada walks

Porto Moniz lava pools

Santana traditional houses

Valley of the Nuns

Where to Stay in Funchal

Hotel Alto Lido is a stylish hotel near the lido area. It’s just been renovated and has a chic reception and bar area. The imitation log furniture in the bar is very lifelike! There’s also a lovely pool with a large terrace and day beds for serious sunbathing. Staff are extremely friendly and helpful.

Reid’s Palace is renowned for its sea views, whilst the Pestana Casino Park has the famous Madeira Casino within its grounds. If you’re looking for a hotel in Funchal city centre then The Vine is an excellent choice.

There are many more fun things to do in Madeira so try to make time to explore the rest of the island.

Practical Information for Visiting Funchal

Currency in Funchal – Euro

Electricity – Voltage is 220V. It’s advisable to bring an adaptor

Health – no vaccines are required

Weather in Funchal – temperatures range from around 73°F (23°C) in August to 61°F (16°C) in January

Language in Funchal – Portugese. English is widely spoken

Tipping – a service charge isn’t normally added, although it’s usual to tip 10%

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     In association with Visit Madeira

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