#also why is the translation I have for this scene already in impact font
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almost said ‘dj fist’ instead of ‘dj punch’ today so here’s a helpful reference about the difference 🙏
#also why is the translation I have for this scene already in impact font#isaythings#anyway#could not think of a way to structure this that did not imply what mic did to dr ujiko#apologies#i now have to double down#he fucked that old man
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Sugar Snow and Peppermint Pathways
Pairing: Fitz Vacker/Dex Dizznee, Sophie Foster/Biana Vacker
Wordcount: 9,587
Summary: Unlike many baking shows out there, the Holiday Bake-Off isn’t elimination-based, which viewers claim makes it all the more interesting. Each competitor, however, is entirely on their own- which means that if the Vacker siblings do attend, they’ll be working against each other for the first time ever.
Dex rolls out the cookie dough again. "I hate them so much."
(Or: nearly everyone is a famous baker, Biana and Fitz are both a little bit in love, and Dex Dizznee does not, under any circumstances, want to interact with the Vackers.)
Other notes: my Winter Exchange gift for @yeetersofthelostcities! I probably wasn’t supposed to tell you as much about this fic as I did, but it’s also 9k, so I think you can forgive me.
Read it on AO3 (much recommended since this is long and some of the fonts didn’t quite translate to Tumblr) or under the cut!
World-Famous Vacker Siblings Rumored To Be On 2020’s Annual Holiday Bake-Off
Fitzroy and Biana Vacker have been making a lot of headlines this year, from the opening of their new bakery in Chicago to the millions of dollars they’ve donated to various charities around the globe. The sibling duo seems to have been born with baking skills- and it’s no surprise, since their mother is Della Vacker, author of five bestselling cookbooks. (See our biography of Della Vacker if you’d like to learn more!)
But this December may mark their greatest trial yet. Netflix’s Happy Holiday Bake-Off garnered more than three million views last year, and it’s set to get even more attention this year now that four-star restaurant owner Edaline Ruewen is hosting.
For those of you new to the bake-off, the rules are simple: it’s comprised of five different baking challenges, spread out over the week leading up to Christmas Day. Each of the eight competitors will have five different chances to wow the judges- and on the final day, whoever’s made the most impact will win thousands of dollars. Unlike many baking shows out there, the Holiday Bake-Off isn’t elimination-based, which viewers claim makes it all the more interesting. Each competitor, however, is entirely on their own- which means that if the Vacker siblings do attend, they’ll be working against each other for the first time ever.
--read more--
OTHER NEWS
13 Christmas Cookie recipes to brighten up your winter!
“It’s All In The Butter”: Edaline Ruewen shares the secret of her famous butterblasts!
Fintan Pyren opens a new barbeque joint in Upper Manhattan. Its name? Flambé.
Subscribe to BAKER’S WEEKLY ONLINE today and get a free tote bag!
-/-
December 12, 2020.
Biana Vacker’s Self-Proclaimed Trash Can Fire
New York City, New York.
“No.”
“Yes,” Biana says cheerfully, leaning over the dining room table to ruffle her brother’s hair. Fitz glares at her. “I’ve already signed the papers.”
“But-” Fitz sighs, apparently already giving up. “Ugh. I’m busy.”
“Fun fact: spending thirty hours trying to refine the perfect croissant recipe does not qualify as being ‘busy’. Our croissants are delicious. They don’t need any more work. You, however, need a vacation.”
“Funner fact: competing against my own sister on a reality show broadcast to the country is less of a vacation than working out apricot croissants would be.”
“Even more fun fact: ‘funner’ is not a word.”
“Even funner fact: I literally do not give a single fuck.”
Della’s laugh crackles over the phone, warm and bright. “Language, Fitzroy,” she says. Livvy snorts.
“He’s twenty-two years old, Dell. I don’t think you get to say that.”
Biana giggles. She can almost picture the scene at the other end of the call- her moms curled up on the couch, Della nursing a cup of mulled cider as Livvy talks intently about her patients at the hospital. Their menorah will have four candles lit by tonight, mirroring the one that sits on Biana’s own side table. The whole house will be filled with warmth and laughter.
Biana misses that sometimes, looking around her empty apartment. Wishes she was still a little girl and could snuggle up next to her mom and watch The Nutcracker because Della knew, without asking, that Biana was sad. Before all this… responsibility.
That’s not really fair, though, because when she was a little girl Livvy wasn’t there, and Della was sad, and Fitz was angry. So maybe she doesn’t miss the old days- maybe she just misses having someone there to understand her.
Fitz is here, she reminds herself. He’s not leaving. He’s good, and he’s not leaving.
“... chocolate chips on the ceiling,” her brother is saying when Biana snaps back to the conversation. Over the phone, Della groans.
“Don’t even mention that. Goodness, I’m glad you’ve left the ‘crazy parties’ stage of your life behind, Fitz. Those were hell to clean up after.”
“I don’t know, it was pretty funny to watch him try to repair a chair while hungover the next morning,” Biana teases. Fitz rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.
“I didn’t-”
There’s a loud beeping noise Biana registers as an oven timer, and she spins around towards her kitchen before realizing it’s coming from her moms’ end. Della makes an apologetic noise.
“Sorry, darlings, we should go. I love you!”
“Love you too,” Biana and Fitz echo. There’s a rustling sound, like Della is moving to hang up, and then she pauses.
“Oh, and Fitz, I think the Holiday Bake-Off is a wonderful idea. Good luck!”
And then Biana’s phone is flashing the Time Elapsed: 22 minutes screen, and her brother is back to glaring at her.
“No.”
“I’m not arguing this anymore,” Biana says, moving towards the kitchen and filling up a pot of water. “Do we want spaghetti for dinner?”
“Sure,” Fitz retrieves several cans of tomato sauce and dumps them in a pot. “I just- sorry. What if we lose?”
“Well, at least one of us is going to lose,” Biana points out. “And even if we both get the lowest ratings in the entire show, so what? We don’t need the money.”
“But-” Fitz waves his hands in the air. “We’re going to be- people are going to be watching us. What happens if we fuck up?”
Oh. Of course that’s what he’s worried about. Fitz has always, always been worried about public appearances. Biana sets the water on the stove and moves over to him, leaning against the opposite counter.
“Bro. Man. My dude.” She says seriously. Fitz purses his lips in a way that makes it clear he’s hiding a smile. “Fitz, we’re going to be fine. No one’s going to be judging how we do in this competition.”
“Sorry, do you hear yourself?”
“Okay, fair, but you know what I mean. Losing this contest isn’t going to wreck our business. If we can strike up enough of a friendship with whoever does win, we could even stand to grow.”
Fitz stares at her. Biana stares back. The tomato sauce starts to bubble.
“Fine,” Fitz finally says. “Do we have any veggie meatballs?”
-/-
December 13, 2020.
The Good Place Bakery
Middlebury, Vermont.
Dex drops the cookie dough onto the flour-covered counter, smacking it with what’s probably more force than necessary. It holds up, though, and he cuts out two entire trays of tiny snowmen and stars before his co-owner arrives in a blaze of glory.
“Guess who’s got a date this weekend!” Keefe sings, dumping his coat on a hook and pushing himself up on the counter. He gets a good look at Dex’s face and frowns. “Whoa, who bruleed your creme?”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Dex rolls his eyes, “and everything’s fine. What poor guy did you pick up now?”
“His name’s Nathan and he’s beautiful,” Keefe sighs. “But don’t try to change the subject. Why do you have your grumpy face on?”
Dex grabs the letter from where he threw it across the room half an hour ago and hands it to the other man. Keefe skims it.
“You have been invited onto Netflix’s Happy Holiday Bake-Off,” he reads. He glances up at Dex. “Okay… didn’t we already know that? Soph’s been talking about the contest for weeks.”
“Yes, but I got more information this time around,” Dex says tightly. “And it turns out the Vacker siblings are also competing.”
“Oh.” Keefe sets the letter down and picks up one of the cookie sheets, sliding it into the oven. “Well, I think you can beat them.”
“Of course I can beat them,” Dex snaps. “That’s not the problem. The problem is-” he sweeps up the dough scraps and prepares to roll them out again. “The problem is they’re fake and I don’t like them.”
He’s aware he sounds like a child. It’s hard to describe, though, what makes him so frustrated about the Vacker siblings. The two of them just make it look so… easy, though. Born into fame and given a head start in front of everyone else. Dex had to take out three different loans to start this bakery, and even that was with Keefe’s huge trust fund.
“They’re just… fake,” he says lamely. “No one’s that perfect.”
“Mmm.” Keefe hums, then murmurs, “okay, but you know who is that perfect?”
Dex sighs. “Okay, tell me about Nathan.”
Keefe is halfway through the story of how they met- at the library, apparently, because that’s widely known to be the most romantic spot in town- when Amy shoves through the doors and steals an unbaked cookie.
“Morning,” she grins around a mouthful of crumbs. Dex raises an eyebrow and slides the cookie sheet towards Keefe before she can eat more.
“Morning,” he says. “How’s Marty?”
“Still hates everyone but Sophie,” Amy shrugs. “Who isn’t here, obviously, because she and Mom are in Chicago setting up the Bake-Off.” She squints at Dex. “I can’t believe you got onto the show. There have to be rules against that.”
“Technically, that only applies if it’s direct relation. So, like, kids and parents.” Keefe grabs a piece of cookie dough. “Plus, even if Edaline did give Dex super high ratings on everything, he can’t win unless the other judges agree.”
“You’re going to get salmonella,” Dex tells the two of them. “But yeah, Keefe’s right. I’ll have to actually try if I want to win.”
“Do you?” Amy asks. Dex bites his lip, dusting some flour off his shirt.
“The money would be nice, I guess. But- I don’t know. We’ll get publicity either way, and that’s what’s important.”
“Attaboy,” Keefe gives him a thumbs-up. “You’re gonna win all the brownie points. Well, assuming they have you make brownies.”
“I-” Dex stares at him, shaking his head. “Why don’t you tell Amy about Nathan.”
-/-
December 17, 2020.
Some Fancy Hotel
Chicago, Illinois.
Biana glances around the room, light reflecting off the chandelier above and casting glittering patterns on the carpet and various couches scattered around the hall-like space. Four days have passed she broke the news to Fitz, and she’s wondering if this was a bad idea after all.
She’s not the first one here, thank goodness; there’s a tiny blond woman seated on a chair further down chatting to a man with silver-dyed bangs and a frizzy-haired woman tapping impatiently on her phone a few feet away. A door at the other end of the hall presumably leads further into the hotel.
A buzz in her pocket prompts her to retrieve her phone, and Biana opens it to find three texts from her brother.
ritzroy
Ok I made it to our room
[image.jpg]
There’s a paper crane on the kitchen counter is this some sort of message
me
yes.
they're trying to tell u that u r a paper crane
ritzroy
*you *are
I know you only do that to annoy me.
me
<3
now get down here i feel awkward standing all by myself
ritzroy
Have you tried talking to people?
me
fuck you
Sighing a bit, she plops down on a couch half-obscured by a large plant. Someone coughs from where they’re sitting next to her and Biana turns around to apologize.
“Hi,” says Sophie Foster.
Biana stares. The woman is about half an inch shorter than her, blond hair tucked back into a ponytail and white blouse slightly wrinkled. Biana’s seen this face on television upwards of a hundred times- the award-winning chef daughter of Grady and Edaline Ruewen attracts attention, after all- but never quite like this, with eyebrows furrowed and mouth tilted a little to the side.
“Hey,” Biana says about a minute too late. “Hey, sorry, I didn’t know there was someone sitting here.”
“No problem,” Sophie assures her. “You’re Biana Vacker, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” Biana nods, slightly stunned that Sophie Elizabeth Foster knows her name. “You’re- Sophie Foster.”
“That’s me,” Sophie says, smiling a little. “You ready for the competition?”
“Definitely,” Biana responds. “I mean, I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I watched the Holiday Bake-Off last year, and it seems like it’s super fun? And it’ll be cool to see what other people make too.”
“Yeah.” Silence falls over the two of them, and Biana cringes inwardly. This is the worst possible thing. Where on earth is her brother?
Searching for something to say, Biana opens her mouth. “Um-”
“Huh?” Sophie turns a little more towards her, eyes fixed on Biana’s face. Biana swallows a little.
“Uh, I was actually really nervous when I noticed I was sitting next to you. I’m kind of a huge fan.”
Sophie blinks. “You’re kidding.”
“No?”
“When I found out you were going to be competing, I literally asked my mom if she could get me on the show because I wanted to meet you so bad.”
Biana’s staring again. “Oh.”
Sophie’s phone buzzes and she pulls it out, tapping the screen. Biana tilts her head a little in confusion.
“Gotta go,” Sophie says with an apologetic smile. She stands up and starts towards the door, turning back to say one last thing before she leaves.
“You’re even prettier in person.”
When Fitz shows up two minutes later, Biana’s still staring wide-eyed at the place where Sophie was just standing. Her brother flops down onto the couch next to her and raises an eyebrow.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” Biana shakes her head. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Well, I dropped the bags off. The room’s nice,” Fitz offers. “Oh, and Mom says we should video chat tonight. She wants the tea.”
Biana blinks. “The… tea.”
“Her words, not mine.”
“Yeah, I think I could tell. What-”
“Hello, everyone!” The door at the end of the hall swings open and a smiling red-haired woman steps out, followed by two others. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Edaline Ruewen, from Vermont. I’ll be one of the judges next week. We’re all gonna go around and introduce ourselves, I’ll outline a schedule, and then y’all will be free to go. Cadence?”
“Good afternoon,” a tall dark-skinned woman greets. “I’m Cadence Talle, food journalist for the LA Times. I’ll be another one of your judges, along with-”
“Bronte.” The third man interrupts. He raises an eyebrow at the faces waiting for him to go on. “Well?”
“Looks like someone’s judging us already,” Fitz whispers. Biana muffles a laugh in her coat sleeve as the blond woman from before speaks up.
“Hi, I’m Marella Redek. I’m a pastry chef over in Portland.”
“Tam Song. I do the baking for a restaurant here in the city.”
People introduce themselves quickly, names flashing by in quick succession- Maruca Chebota, Jensi Babblos, Stina Heks.
“I’m Biana Vacker,” Biana says when it’s her turn. “My brother and I co-manage a couple bakeries across the country.”
Fitz raises his hand. “I’m her brother.”
“Dex Dizznee,” says the last competitor, a strawberry-blond man seated on the arm of a couch. “I have a bakery up in Middlebury.”
“Wait, The Good Place?” Fitz leans forward. “I made your chocolate cream pie recipe once. It’s fantastic.”
Dex blinks, face finally settling in an expression that reminds Biana of some of the people at the huge dinner parties her dad used to throw- carefully, delicately concealed disdain. She wonders what Fitz has done to warrant that look.
“Oh, that’s cool,” Dex says calmly. “Chocolate cream is one of my co-owner’s favorites, actually.”
Fitz nods. “Neat.”
Edaline smiles at them, clapping her hands for attention. “All right! Let’s go over the schedule, then. The first round is on Saturday, and the last one is next Wednesday. You’ll be expected to arrive at the kitchens by eleven am…”
“What’s up with him?” Biana whispers. Fitz raises one shoulder in a tiny shrug.
“I don’t know, but he doesn’t seem to like me very much.”
There’s no way Dex can hear them- he’s nearly fifteen feet away and Edaline’s voice carries throughout the entire hall. Still, he’s staring at Fitz when Biana glances at him, and there’s molten caramel in his gaze.
-/-
December 17, 2020.
Some Fancy Room In Some Fancy Hotel
Chicago, Illinois.
“And then he just went, ‘Neat.’ Neat? Like, what the fuck?”
“Dude, you know I love you, but don’t you think you’re making a bit of a big deal out of this? He just complimented the bakery.”
Dex heaves a sigh, flopping onto his hotel bed and staring up at the light fixture. It’s probably trendy, with all those boxes or whatever, but Dex can’t really tell. This is why he’s a baker.
“I know, I know. He just- gets under my skin. I’ve been pissed all day.”
“Funny,” Keefe says, and Dex can just hear him smiling. “I thought you had more of a problem with the Vackers as a whole than you did with Fitz. Or is he just too attractive to be anything but your singular arch-nemesis?”
“Enemies to lovers speedrun,” Amy calls in the background and Keefe laughs. He’s probably having dinner with Grady and Amy tonight like they typically do once a month. Normally, Dex, Sophie and Edaline are there too.
Dex’s family is weirdly spread across the country- Grady and Edaline live an hour away, Rex and Bex are somehow both coexisting at Seattle University while Lex stays closer to home back in Michigan, and Sophie and Amy split their time between Middlebury and their apartment in San Francisco. They do their best to stay in touch, though, even with the bakery’s odd hours and the Ruewen’s constant media appearances.
“So how’s the hotel?” Keefe asks. Dex shrugs.
“It’s a hotel. My room has a little kitchen, which is nice, and there’s, like, a bigger community pantry-slash-kitchen down the hall. It feels like college.”
“College is worse, actually,” Amy says. Dex snorts.
“You say that like I haven’t been to college.”
“Dude, we met in college,” Keefe points out, “and you did not get the full college experience. You just, like, baked 23/7 and then miraculously passed all your classes with the last hour.”
“Yes,” Dex says over the sound of Amy’s cackling. “Yes, that is exactly what I did. You’re completely right.”
“I know,” Keefe says. “I’m always right. I have, never, ever done anything wrong.”
“You called me this morning to freak out over your date outfit for a date that’s three days away, but go off I guess.” Amy deadpans.
“Fuck you-” The sounds of a small scuffle come through the speakers and Dex rolls his eyes.
“I’m going to sleep,” he calls. “See you guys in a week.”
“Good luck!” Amy calls, and Dex hangs up.
-/-
December 19, 2020.
Netflix’s Test Kitchen
Chicago, Illinois.
Biana tucks one last strand of hair back into her braid and glances over at the imposing black camera standing next to her station. There are ones just like it scattered around the entire room, fluorescent overhead lights reflected off their shiny exteriors. It’ll be weird trying to bake with someone recording her the whole time, but she can take it.
“Good morning, everyone!” Edaline calls, sweeping out to the judges bench with Cadence and Bronte close on her heels. There’s some sort of sheet-covered circle on the wall behind them. “I hope y’all are ready to bake!”
Everyone cheers and Edaline throws her head back, laughing a laugh with just enough snort in it to sound real. Biana’s reminded suddenly of her own mother; Edaline has the same sort of tough core and caring nature covered by a thin layer of plastic for the cameras. She wonders if Sophie is the same.
“And without further ado,” Edaline says. Biana snaps her attention back, hoping she hasn’t missed anything important. “Today’s challenge is…”
Bronte tugs on the fabric and it falls away to reveal a casino-style roulette wheel. If Biana squints, she can see words written on each colored section; CHOCOLATE and RASPBERRY and ALMOND.
“Cookies,” he announces.
Cadence sweeps her gaze over all of them. “Spin the wheel twice to find out what ingredients you need to include, and then you’ll have forty-five minutes to bake. Understood?”
Biana nods, glancing at the camera out of the corner of her eye and rearranging her face into something a bit more excited. She should probably start thinking about what to say in the post-baking interview.
Fitz is the first to spin the wheel, and he gets COCONUT and STRAWBERRY. He looks a little confused but smiles, media persona still firmly in place.
Biana gets GINGER and CHOCOLATE, returning to her station with a wide smile. This recipe is one she created with Livvy- they were home alone while Della and Fitz went out to a show and decided to try the most difficult food combinations they could think of.
Honey-covered crickets were surprisingly delicious. Hot sauce mixed with Gatorade was not.
(I knew what I was going to do immediately, she tells the cameras afterward. It’s a family favorite; chocolate-ginger crinkle cookies.)
She retrieves a packet of candied ginger and grabs two bags of chocolate chips, dumping one bag in a saucepan and starting to melt them. A few feet away, Dex Dizznee stares at his ingredients- ALMOND and ANISE, a fairly simple combination- before turning away towards the ingredients. If Biana had to hazard a guess, she’d say he’s making biscotti.
(Biscotti’s probably too obvious for almonds, Dex shrugs later, but my friend Keefe and I perfected an almond-anise biscotti a while back and I figured, why waste what little time I had on something new?)
Once she gets started, it’s easy to just focus on the recipe. She’s not like Fitz; baking’s not the be-all end-all stress reliever it is for him, but there’s definitely something comforting about the familiar motions. Before she knows it, she’s pulling the sheets out of the oven and arranging the prettiest ones on a plate for the judges to try.
Marella Redek goes up first, showing off her caramel-pecan shortbread with a polite smile.
(I’m just glad I didn’t get one of those crazy combinations, she says with a sigh of relief.)
Then Fitz, who’s managed to make tiny sandwich cookies filled with strawberry jam and dusted with coconut in forty-five minutes. He fidgets with his hands as the judges taste them.
(I was really worried when I got my ingredients. I’m so relieved they turned out okay.)
Biana’s cookies go over well, Cadence nodding and reaching for another one. Finally Dex Dizznee steps up.
“Almond-anise biscotti,” he says with a small smile. The judges all bite into the cookies at the same time and smile.
“Delicious,” Bronte says. Dex grins and steps back to his station.
Fifteen minutes later, the contestants stand in front of the judges bench in a straight line, worried eyes and tapping feet all the way down.
“All your cookies were exquisite,” Edaline says. “But one of you made a fantastic first impression.”
Cadence offers the group a tiny, sideways smile. “Dexter Dizznee,” she says. “You are today’s winner.”
There’s a round of applause and Dex’s cheeks go a little bit red.
“Thank you,” he says.
(I won! It’s only the first round, of course, but I’m still proud to have started off on the right foot.)
“Hey,” Biana nudges her brother’s shoulder as they trail out of the room for individual interviews.“That wasn’t too bad, huh?”
“No,” Fitz tilts his head and glances back at the still-smiling Dex. “I guess it wasn’t.”
(I don’t think I’m too sad about losing this round. Dex’s cookies looked absolutely delicious, anyway.)
Biana’s phone buzzes on the way back to her room. She pulls it out to see two messages from an unknown number.
415-623-7868
hi!! sorry if this is mega creepy but it was super cool to meet you the other day and i’d love to talk more sometime
this is sophie foster btw
“Holy shit,” Biana whispers. Her brother turns around with a questioning glance but she waves him off. “Nothing, I’m fine.” She’s pretty sure she’s grinning at her phone screen with all the force of a thousand suns. “I’m totally fine.”
(Tomorrow, we try again.)
-/-
December 20, 2020.
Netflix’s Test Kitchen
Chicago, Illinois.
Buoyed by the previous day’s success and an especially good breakfast buffet (he is not immune to chocolate-chip pancakes, no matter what he might claim), Dex practically floats into the kitchen the next day. His mood isn’t even brought down by Bronte’s lackluster announcement that the second challenge is simply Snowflakes. The bakery’s meringues are a town favorite for a reason, after all, and that reason is that they’re fucking good.
He does get annoyed, though, by the man leaning against a counter a few feet away as he pipes the meringue. Fitz Vacker is tapping his fingers against the marble, watching the ice cream machine with a calm sort of fixation. Dex huffs and accidentally pipes too much meringue on the baking sheet.
“Do you mind?” He grumbles under his breath. Fitz’s head snaps up.
“Sorry,” he says, slight accent curling around his words. It’s not a British accent or really any sort Dex can discern, and that just makes him more frustrated. “Am I in your way?”
“No,” Dex says as politely as he can. He’s well aware of the cameras standing a few feet away. “No, you're fine.”
Fitz nods and tilts his head towards the meringues, apparently taking Dex’s grudging silence as an invitation. “Those look pretty good.”
“Thank you,” Dex says shortly, letting out an annoyed sigh internally when Fitz doesn’t budge. “You’re making ice cream?”
“Heh, yeah. I couldn’t really think of anything else, so.” Fitz shrugs. “Ice cream bars.” He scratches the back of his neck, looking a little embarrassed. “At least it’s cold, right? Like snow.”
This startles a laugh out of Dex. “Yeah, like snow.” He leans back a little to give the now-completed snowflakes a once-over. “What do you think?”
“They look great!” Fitz enthuses, jumping a bit when the ice cream machine lets out a long beep. “Oh, looks like that’s me. I should go. Nice to meet you!”
And then he’s off to his own station, bowl of ice cream clutched tightly in one hand. Dex allows himself thirty seconds of staring into the camera like he’s on The Office before he sighs and slides the meringues into the oven.
What on earth was that.
He bumps into Sophie on his way out of the room after interviews. Biana Vacker’s chocolate-pecan-bark snowflakes won today; unsurprising, since they looked almost real- and he kind of just wants to go back to his room and sleep for a month. His cousin, however, seems to have other ideas.
“Quick,” she says, grabbing his arm. Her phone is in her other hand, screen lighting up with a message. “How much would my mom kill me if I went on a date with one of the Bake-Off contestants?”
“Um,” Dex blinks. “I’m going to need some more information?”
“Okay, so I met Biana Vacker the other day, and I might have gotten her number from the contestant files we have? And then texted her? For like five hours last night? And I might have asked her out and she might have said yes?” Sophie tugs at her eyelashes. “Please help me, I have no idea what the fuck I’m going to do.”
“You’re going on a date with Biana Vacker,” Dex confirms. “Why?”
“Because she’s smart, and pretty, and incredibly funny, and because I don’t have some weird hate-obsession with her.”
“I don’t-”
“Yes, you do. Seriously, how much is Mom going to murder me for this?”
“How much is Mom going to murder you for what?”
Edaline’s standing a few feet away, arms folded across her chest and eyebrows raised. Sophie’s eyes go wide, but she sighs as if already giving up.
Dex gets it. Edaline is scary when she wants to be.
“Is it illegal and-slash-or nepotism if I go on a date with Biana Vacker tomorrow night?”
Edaline blinks. “Probably not? As long as you can confirm that she’s not using you to get further in the contest.” She shrugs. “I could talk to Cadence and Bronte about it, but they were all right with Dex being on the show, so.”
“Wait, really?” Sophie grins and throws her arms around her mother. “This is the best. Thanks, Mom! I’m gonna go text her.”
She takes off down the hall, typing frantically. Edaline watches her go with a fond smile.
“It’s incredibly weird to see her this old,” She says to Dex. “I still think of her as twelve, honestly.”
Dex snorts. “Yeah.”
“So,” Edaline cocks her head, looking at him with the same I’m going to ask you a question and we both know what the right answer is look that Dex’s own mother has. “I saw you talking to Fitz Vacker earlier. Making friends?”
“No.” Dex says immediately. Then he rolls his eyes. “He’s not as bad as I was expecting, though.”
“What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know, like, posh and rich and British or whatever they are. But he’s actually a decent person or whatever.”
“Or whatever.” Edaline laughs. “Well, I’m glad you’re having fun either way. I’ve got to get to a meeting, but I’ll see you later, all right? Say hi to Keefe for me.”
Dex nods and heads back to his room.
He really needs to sleep.
-/-
December 21, 2020.
The Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois.
“Here we are,” Sophie says as they push through museum security and enter the clearly-marked Thorne Rooms. Biana glances at the art curiously; the exhibit is made up of tiny glass windows set into low walls all around. She peers into one and lets out a tiny gasp.
“Oh.”
It’s a tiny room in there; chairs and sofas all with perfectly embroidered cushions as small as Biana’s thumb. Through minuscule doors in the back, Biana glimpses a painted background and a balcony. It’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.
Sophie snorts behind her, and Biana realizes she said that last bit out loud. “Right? It’s all real, too. Took Narcissa Thorne and her craftsmen eight years.”
“Wow.”
“I used to come here all the time,” Sophie says, stepping forward and tracing one finger over the glass. “Whenever we were in town. I wished I could live in some of these rooms.” She glances back at Biana and gives a little self-deprecating smile. “Pretty stupid, probably.”
“No, it’s not,” Biana shakes her head. “I get it. It would be nice to escape for a little bit, especially to a place that looks like that.” She tilts her head at the room. Sophie laughs.
“I’ll bet it gets really dusty, though. And that chair seems highly uncomfortable.”
They move throughout the whole exhibit, making low comments to each other every time they see a particularly amazing piece of furniture or a fancy candlestick. Biana finds herself relaxing more and more- Sophie is smart, and funny, and keeps shooting her little smiles that make Biana’s knees weak.
That day’s competition had been the hardest yet. Each contestant had had to make a dessert based around a Christmas carol; a specific, judge-assigned Christmas carol. It was, for lack of a better term, absolute shit.
Biana had gotten Santa Claus Is Coming To Town- not the worst, considering the circumstances, and at least she knew it- and had had to figure out how to map the route of an overweight stalker on baked goods.
She hadn’t won; that honor had gone to Maruca Chebota’s fondant replica of a sleigh for Over The River And Through The Woods. (Biana is pretty sure that song is actually a Thanksgiving song, but she wasn’t going to contradict.) Still, Biana’s happy, content as they leave the museum and move down to an Italian restaurant a few blocks away. Smiling as Sophie’s hand brushes against hers.
They get settled in a little corner near a window, knees bumping under the table. The room is dim, lit by one chandelier in the middle and candles on every table. It’s warm, something delicious wafting through the air.
Sophie leans forward to grab a menu, hair lit golden in the candlelight, and Biana revises her earlier statement. The Thorne Rooms aren’t the most beautiful things she’s ever seen. This woman is.
“Everything okay?” Sophie asks. Biana realizes she’s been staring and gives her a quick nod.
“Yeah, no. Everything’s perfect.” She glances down at the tablecloth, sees Sophie fidgeting with the edge of her napkin. “Are you all right?”
“I, uh,” Sophie tugs at one of her eyelashes. “I just wanted to say that I don’t really tend to talk to my mom about the competition? So, like, if you’re just trying to get an edge or something-”
“No!” Biana shakes her head, reaching forward to grab the other woman’s hand. “No, no no. Absolutely not. This is like, the opposite of that.”
“Pretty sure the opposite of that would be divorcing me to lose the Bake-Off,” Sophie says, but she’s smiling. Biana smiles back.
“Well, I don’t want to do that either.”
“What do you want to do?”
Biana shrugs. “I don’t know. This is pretty nice. I like spending time with you.”
Sophie blushes and tightens her grip on Biana’s hand. “I-”
“Pardon me.” There’s a waiter standing next to their table, notepad in hand. He offers them an awkward smile. “Are you ready to order?”
“Right!” Biana says at the same time as Sophie’s “Yes! For sure! Just give me a second!”. They grin at each other and look back down at the menus.
“Thank you,” Sophie murmurs after they’ve ordered. Biana doesn’t have to ask what for.
“Of course.”
(Biana leans down to kiss her barely an hour later. Sophie smiles against her lips and tugs her in closer.)
(Biana doesn’t get back to her hotel that night.)
-/-
December 22, 2020.
Some Fancy Hotel
Chicago, Illinois.
Dex can’t sleep.
There’s no particular reason why, no loud party down the street or flashing lights outside his window. He just can’t sleep, which is especially frustrating when he glances at the clock and finds it’s one AM. Tomorrow- or, today, really- is event four, and if he wants to make a good impression, he’d better do it on more than three hours of sleep.
Heaving a sigh, he flops himself out of bed and flips on the light switch. As long as he’s awake, he might as well read or something.
A loud crash sounds from down the hall. Dex blinks and grabs his sneakers, opening his door and peeking out. No one’s in sight, but rustling noises are coming from the communal kitchen a few doors away. Dex decides that sleep is for the weak and pads down to investigate.
Fitz Vacker is standing in the middle of the kitchen, aggressively stirring a bowl of what looks like cookie dough and frowning. There’s a flour-dusted cookbook on the counter.
“Um.” Dex coughs a little. Fitz looks up from the cookie dough and turns toward him. He's wearing a sweatshirt thrown over a pair of what looks like Walgreens-brand pajamas. Dex is a little surprised that a Vacker would wear something that shitty.
“Sorry,” he says in his annoyingly perfect accent. “Did I wake you up?”
“Nah, you’re fine. Why are you still awake?”
Fitz shrugs. “Couldn’t fall asleep. You?”
“Same.” Dex moves over and peers into the bowl. “Sugar cookies?”
“They’re a classic Christmas cookie, right?” Fitz looks at him. Dex blinks. “No, really, I’m asking. I don’t celebrate Christmas.”
This startles a laugh out of Dex. “Yeah, they’re a classic. My aunt used to make them all the time in December. I’d come home from school and she’d be, like, chilling on our couch with three different kinds of cookies.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t even realize she was famous until I was eight. She was just Aunt Eda.”
“My mom used to have to do all these photo shoots? With baked goods and shit? And she’d bring me and Bi along because our daycare didn’t go that late so we’d just be hanging out around this camera equipment and doing our best not to break anything.” Fitz looks down and stirs the cookie dough a bit more. “Bi always says we grew up with a camera in our faces, so much that we never learned to be normal. She’s more right than I’d like to think.”
Dex doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have anything to say; he’s always assumed, like so many other people, that the spotlight on the Vackers was effortless and encouraged. Life seemed so easy for them.
Of course it does, Dex reminds himself. Life always looks easy when you’re the one looking at it.
“Sorry,” Fitz grabs the bowl and turns away, reaching up into a cabinet for some powdered sugar. “I get… honest when I’m tired.”
“Yeah, well, I get grumpy, so you’re still better off.” Dex grabs a baking sheet out of where they’re being stored in the oven, since the cookies look about ready to be rolled out. “You’re fine, though. No cameras here.”
You’re not being judged here, he means. I’d like to get to know you.
This must translate at least a little, because Fitz gives him a small smile and dumps the dough out onto the counter.
“Help me? I think the cookie cutters are in the bottom left drawer.”
“Got it.” Dex grabs a tiny metal snowman and cuts out a piece of dough, laying it flat on the metal sheet. He’s reminded suddenly of going through the same motions back home, with Keefe and Amy arguing good-naturedly over his head.
There’s a different air in the kitchen right now. It’s quieter, slower, dark-dark-chocolatey; something bitter and sweet and smooth all at the same time.
“Are you worried about the competition?” He asks. Fitz blinks, lifting another three cookies onto the sheet before answering.
“I don’t think so. I was, before, but once I got here…” he gives an expansive shrug. “It’s just baking. Baking calms me down.”
“Hence the cookies at one AM,” Dex notes. Fitz laughs.
“Hence the stress-baking cookies at one AM,” he agrees. “I don’t even think I was stressed about the contest, just-” he waves a hand in the air. “Just stressed in general.”
“I get that.” Dex presses a few buttons on the oven and tilts his head toward the table a few feet away. They’ll need to wait for the oven to heat up before they put the cookies in. “I was pretty scared of fucking up at first, but, I mean, it’s a baking competition. Everyone’s gonna forget the butter at some point.”
Fitz squints at him. “I can’t tell if ‘forget the butter’ is an expression I’m unaware of, or if you actually did that and I just didn’t hear about it.”
“Maruca from Cali did that, actually. I have more style, at least- I forgot the eggs.”
“My friend’s cat got into my kitchen once,” Fitz says seriously. “Not during this contest, but when I was making her daughter’s birthday cake. There was hair everywhere. It was… a cat-astrophe.”
Both of them are silent for almost a full minute, just staring at each other, before Dex breaks down.
“That was terrible,” he wheezes, trying to stop laughing. Fitz grins.
“I know, I’m embarrassed of myself.”
“You should be.”
The oven beeps and they both startle, turning toward it. Fitz retrieves an oven mitt and slides the cookies into the oven. Dex closes the door and stands back up, suddenly realizing how close they’re standing.
“You should try to sleep,” Fitz says quietly. “It’s late.”
Dex nods slightly but doesn’t move. There’s a tiny bit of flour on Fitz’s cheekbone. He doesn’t know why he notices it.
They seem to stand there forever, just looking at each other. Then, suddenly, Fitz turns away and looks over the cookbook again.
“I should sleep,” Dex says. Fitz nods, face shadowed in the dim lights. Dex turns away and heads back to his room.
What the fuck was that.
-/-
December 23, 2020.
Netflix’s Test Kitchen
Chicago, Illinois.
“Dex Dizznee. Biana Vacker. Maruca Chebota. And Tam Song.” Bronte reads out the names, then looks down at the contestants. “The four of you have won the past events, so you’ll get an extra prize today.”
“As you all know, today is the last event!” Edaline says cheerfully. “All eight of you have made some truly fantastic desserts in the past week, but only one person can win and today’s your final chance to really wow the judges. So, Event Five is…”
Cadence gestures toward the table up front, which holds two candy-covered houses. “Gingerbread houses,” she says. “You have four hours to bake, assemble, and decorate a gingerbread house with your partner.”
“Yep, you’ll be working in pairs for this one,” Edaline says when the murmurs start up. “And our four previous winners get to choose who they’re working with.” She smiles at Biana. “Although, Miss Vacker, I’m afraid you can’t work with your brother.”
Biana laughs, turning and holding out a hand to Marella Redek instead. “All right. How about it, partner?”
Marella shrugs and takes her hand. Edaline gestures to Dex.
He glances over the seven remaining contestants. Jensi Babblos seems nice- he probably wouldn’t be too bad to work with. Or maybe he can pair up with another winner and ask Maruca?
Then Fitz catches his eye and Dex remembers the previous day, cutting out cookies in the early-early morning light. It’s not really a choice after that.
“Fitz,” he decides, and the man strides over to stand next to him.
The other two pairs find each other, Edaline lays out the final rules, and then she shouts go! and they’re off.
“Hand me the cinnamon?” Dex asks. Fitz drops it into his hand and Dex dumps a tablespoon in the bowl, starting up the mixer. “Okay, and we should get the icing started so it has time to cool-”
“Already done,” Fitz says. He points to a bowl of fluffy white icing on the counter a foot away. “We should probably-”
“Figure out the decorations, yeah. You wanna-”
“Sketch something?”
They grin at each other and Dex pours the gingerbread batter into a pan. “Perfect,” he says. The oven lets out a tiny beep when he closes it.
The hours pass quickly, in a blur of candy and icing. They cover the sides of the house in dark red modeling chocolate and drag a toothpick through them for the individual bricks, carefully shape a vanilla wafer chimney, build a candy-cane fence. The actual construction of the house is tricky- Dex has to hold the walls up while Fitz pipes the icing and then keeps holding them until it sets. They get through it with only one roof collapse, though, and the final house looks pretty good. Fitz glues down three peppermints to make a path in front of the door, Dex attaches tiny sugar cookie trees to the ground, and they’re done with two minutes to spare.
“Wait, no. Hang on.” Fitz rummages through the mess they’ve made at their station, skirting a camera and grabbing the half-empty container of powdered sugar. He dumps it into a sieve.
“Snow,” he and Dex say in unison. Fitz laughs and shakes the sieve over their presentation board, covering the whole thing in a fine layer of powder.
“Perfect,” Dex says just as the timer goes off. “Let’s win this thing.”
-/-
December 23, 2020.
Netflix’s Test Kitchen
Chicago, Illinois.
Cameras flash as they zero in on Dex and Fitz’s gingerbread house, presumably taking the shots that will go along with Edaline’s and the winner of Event Five is Fitz Vacker and Dex Dizznee! announcement in the actual show. Biana’s staring at the opposite wall, though; if she looks towards the recording equipment, she doubts she’ll be able to hide how nervous she is.
The competition doesn’t matter in the long run, but it would be really, really cool to win.
“Now,” Edaline says after the cameras have returned to their original places. “You’ve all shown amazing talent in the past few days. Frankly, all three of us were just blown away at some of the things you created. But one of you managed to wow us at every turn, showcasing your art as well as your baking skills. And that person is…”
Next to Biana, her brother stares at the ground. A few feet away, Dex is twisting his hands together, expression schooled into something just left of panic. Biana takes a deep breath.
“Maruca Chebota!”
The room is silent, and then everyone breaks into applause. Maruca is smiling wide, tears glittering at the corners of her eyes.
“Thank you so much,” she manages before getting crushed into a giant group hug.
Later, Biana stands in the front hall of the hotel with her suitcase by her side. She and Fitz are flying home tonight, and she can’t wait to get back to her own apartment.
“It’ll be nice,” Sophie agrees. “I’m heading straight out to Michigan to see my aunt and uncle for Christmas.”
Fitz appears in the doorway, talking animatedly with someone out of sight. Biana takes the opportunity to give Sophie one last kiss.
“I’ll text you?” She asks. Sophie nods.
Fitz strolls up, Dex by his side. They’ve finished their conversation, apparently, and are now just looking at each other. Biana coughs.
“We should get to the airport.” She reminds him. Fitz jumps.
“Right! Yes, of course. Um-” he glances back at Dex and then sweeps the shorter man into a hug. Dex’s eyes widen but he hugs back.
“It was so nice to meet you,” Biana tells Dex when the two break apart. “Have a nice Christmas.”
“You too,” Dex says, and then he and Sophie are gone. Biana elbows her brother.
“Dexter Dizznee, huh?” She asks. Fitz glares at her.
“Shut up.”
-/-
December 28, 2020.
Dizznee Family Household
Detroit, Michigan.
Christmas is low-key. Or, it’s as low-key as Christmas with the Dizznees can be, anyway. Bex manages to get lights on the roof, Rex brings his partners to dinner and the three of them break into an impromptu performance of Deck The Halls, and Lex sets up an elaborate present-wrapping station in the living room that seems to involve heinous amounts of tape.
Edaline disappears upstairs a few times to work out all the details of the show, but she has enough time to help Kesler baste a turkey and kick all of their collective asses at foosball alongside Juline. Grady makes chocolate-covered cherries and Amy eats too many of them and Sophie laughs herself to tears when her sister trips over an armchair in her post-chocolate haze. They smile and exchange terrible presents and sing carols and it’s all normal, as normal as anything gets these days.
So maybe they’re not low-key. Maybe it’s just Dex who’s low, Dex who still feels like something’s missing.
He lost the competition. He’s not mad about it; losing by a few stray points isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. And the publicity he’ll gain from just being on television is definitely worth it.
None of that explains his mood, though, and Dex is starting to wonder what on earth he isn’t seeing.
“Hey,” Sophie says, wandering into the den and flopping down on the couch alongside him. Dex has been absentmindedly fiddling with a Rubik's cube for the past ten minutes, and he only now realizes it’s solved. “What’s up?”
“Hmm?”
“You’ve been mopey all day,” she says. “All week, actually. Which is weird, because you’re not normally mopey.”
“You- noticed?”
Sophie gives him an affronted look. “I do pay attention.”
“I’m not mopey,” Dex protests.
“So staring into the distance and frowning is just a hobby?” Sophie sighs, plucking the Rubik’s cube out of his hands and scooting closer. “Look, I’m not trying to shame you. I just want to know what’s going on.”
Dex stares at her, then glances down at his hands. “I… who do you keep texting?”
The question catches Sophie off guard. “What?”
“You’ve been glancing down at your phone and smiling all through vacation,” he says. “Who are you texting?”
Sophie’s cheeks flush pink. “Um. Biana?”
“Oh.” Right. Biana Vacker. Dex had almost forgotten about her, in all the chaos of the last day of competition and then heading back home. Sophie didn’t, apparently. “That’s great. I’m happy for you.”
“You sound like a greeting card.”
“Fuck you, I’m trying.”
Sophie rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “Thanks, though. I really like her.” She tilts her head. “Now, back to your moping.”
“No.”
“Hmm.” Sophie says. She fixes him with a look that says I can see into your soul and there is some weird stuff in there. “Dex. What happened when you teamed up with Fitz Vacker in the last round of the contest?”
“Um.” Dex blinks. “We… made a gingerbread house?”
“And after that?” Sophie raises an eyebrow. “Dex, I know you. You’ve hated the Vackers possibly since you were born. How on Earth did you go from that to hugging Fitz when you said goodbye to him?”
“I-”
There have been a lot of things recently, Dex reflects, that he’s been unable to explain, even to himself. Why he disliked the Vackers in the first place. Why he’s been empty the past few days.
Why he and Fitz are sort of on decent terms now.
But things start to dig themselves out of his memory; an out-of-the-blue compliment about his pies, a night spent in a terrible hotel kitchen unable to sleep, a grin and a tiny peppermint swirl and fake sugar snow on a rooftop.
“Oh.” Dex’s eyes go wide. “Oh, shit.”
“What?” Sophie asks. As if on cue, three strawberry-blond heads poke into the doorway. Dex groans.
“Do you hear that?” Rex asks, shit-eating grin on his face. Lex nods seriously.
“I believe it’s the sound of a local man realizing he’s been in love with Fitzroy Vacker this whole time.”
Bex gestures towards Dex as if she’s holding a microphone. “Tell me, sir, how does it feel to come to such a conclusion? Do you think your behavior towards Mr. Vacker will change after this?”
“Please leave,” Dex says flatly. Sophie squints at him.
“Wait, are you really-”
“I don’t know. Please make them leave.”
Sophie looks from him to the triplets, who give her matching smiles. She shakes her head and stands up.
“I don’t think I’m capable of doing that, honestly. I’m going to go text Bi.”
“Traitor!” Dex calls after her. The triplets flop down on the couch, garishly patterned Christmas sweaters clashing terribly with the blue cushions. Bex gives him an exaggerated I’m thinking look.
“Hmm,” she says. “You know, maybe Amy was onto something with all her ‘enemies to lovers speedrun’ stuff.”
“I’m leaving this family,” Dex mutters, shoving a pillow over his face. “I will go to Canada and buy a large house and never have to see any of you ever again.”
Rex raises his eyebrows. “Wow, you’d leave your boyfriend behind like that?”
“Nope! No, nope, not doing this.” Dex stands up and moves towards the door. Behind him, he hears at least one of his siblings fall off the couch.
“Seriously, though. What are you going to do?”
Dex turns back around. Rex and Bex are sprawled on the floor in a tangle of feet, but Lex is looking at Dex with a strangely sympathetic expression. He sighs.
“I don’t know.”
There’s a buzz in his pocket and Dex pulls his phone out as his siblings start to untangle themselves.
Fos-Boss
hey. wanna go to nyc?
-/-
December 31, 2020.
Biana Vacker’s Self-Proclaimed Trash Can Fire
New York City, New York.
“You’re doing it again.”
Fitz leans his head over the back of the couch and frowns at her. “Doing what?”
“Your whole woe is me, time to stare aimlessly at the wall thing.” Biana waves a hand towards her brother. “Stop that and help me cut the baklava.”
“This is… a lot of baklava for just the two of us,” Fitz says. “Are you sure you didn’t decide to throw another giant stupid New Years party again?”
“I promise there will be no giant New Years party,” Biana says. “I’ve invited two people over. That’s it.”
“But you refuse to tell me who those people are, which automatically makes me suspicious.”
As if on cue, the doorbell rings. Biana smiles at her brother and takes the knife from him.
“Why don’t you go find out?”
Fitz sighs and moves out into the hallway. Biana hears him swing the door open, and then- nothing.
She pushes the now-cut baklava onto a plate and leans her head out the doorway. Her brother is standing there, staring at a man with strawberry-blond hair. Sophie stands behind him, smiling awkwardly.
“Hello!” She says, directing the statement at Biana since her cousin is still locked in a staring contest with Fitz. “Happy New Year!”
“It’s not New Years yet,” Biana laughs, coming out of the doorway to grab Sophie’s coat and drop a quick kiss to her lips. “How was your drive?”
“Long,” Sophie says. “But I’ve had worse. And we had some decent pancakes, right?”
“Right,” Dex murmurs, still staring at Fitz. He shakes his head. “Yeah, they were pretty good. Happy New Year, by the way.”
“You too,” Fitz manages. Biana hides a laugh behind her sweater sleeve and grabs Dex’s arm.
“Hey, you wanna come help me open the champagne?”
“Sure, but-”
“We’ll be fine,” Fitz manages a bright grin. “I’m gonna show Sophie some of Bi’s elementary school pictures.”
“Fitzroy Avery Vacker, don’t you dare-”
Fitz laughs and Biana and Dex retreat back to the kitchen. Biana reaches for one of the bottles of champagne and turns towards the shorter man.
“I’m not going to give you a shovel talk,” she shrugs, “mainly because I think you already know I could murder you if you hurt him.”
“Yep,” Dex nods. He looks down. “But you don’t have to worry about giving me a shovel talk. It’s not like we’re dating.”
“No, you two have just been in love with each other for a ridiculously long amount of time.” The cork pops out of the champagne bottle and Sophie cheers from the other room. Biana grins at the stunned expression Dex is giving her. “Come on. Only an hour till midnight.”
They put the Times Square Ball Drop on at 11:30, watching as some band Biana vaguely recognizes but couldn’t name rocks out in front of the crowd. Sophie says that looks cold, and Biana says it’s always cold. That’s why I stay home, and Sophie snuggles a little closer to her. At the ten-minute mark, Dex and Fitz make some sort of telepathic agreement to go out and stand on the balcony.
“Hey,” Biana mutters as the lights onscreen get brighter. The countdown should start soon. “I’m so glad I met you.”
Sophie turns her face, so close their noses almost brush. “Me too,” she smiles. “But I’m even happier I get to do this.”
A hurricane could probably pass through the apartment right now without Biana noticing. Sophie's lips are soft, and Biana knows this woman will stick with her no matter what.
Numbers start to flash on the screen. Biana couldn’t care less about what they say.
-/-
December 31, 2020.
Fitz Vacker’s Plant-Covered Balcony
New York City, New York.
“The apartment’s Biana’s, technically,” Fitz says as they step out into the cold night air. “But she never uses the balcony and I needed a place to put my plants, so it’s mine now.”
“And you’re certainly using the space,” Dex notes. He can spot at least five different kinds of flowers out here, and that’s just with his non-existent plant knowledge.
Fitz laughs, loud and bright against the painted backdrop of the sky. There are only a few stars Dex can see, but the whole sky is a shade of midnight blue that makes up for the darkness.
“I am, yeah.” He leans on the railing for a moment, staring down at the world below, before turning back a bit. “How was your Christmas?”
“Good,” Dex says. “How was your… Hanukkah?”
“It ended before the contest started, but yeah, it was good” Fitz glances down at the street again and Dex goes to stand next to him. Minutes tick by, the two of them just watching cars pass by.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Fitz says finally. The words are soft, barely more than whispers, and Dex thinks for a moment that he imagined them. Then Fitz looks up and meets his eyes.
A cheer goes up from around the city, people everywhere shouting Ten!
“I’m glad too,” Dex says. Carefully, oh-so-slowly, he reaches up and cups the other man’s cheek. Fitz’s eyes flutter closed for just a moment.
Seven!
“The ball will drop soon,” he murmurs. “If you want to watch it.”
“I’m fine,” Dex smiles. “Unless- you want to?”
Five!
“Nah,” Fitz says, reaching up to touch Dex’s hand where it’s still on his face. “I think I can do without the spectacle for tonight.”
Three!
Dex nods, rocking forward just a little.
Two!
Fitz’s eyes are bright, and his breath is warm where it ghosts across Dex’s skin.
One!
They barely have to move in before their lips meet.
-/-
January 1, 2021.
Somewhere Over New York City.
Fireworks bloom into bursts of color against the dark sky.
#lynn rambles#my writing#kotlc#detz#sophiana#fitz vacker#biana vacker#sophie foster#dex dizznee#edaline ruewen
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Yu-Gi-Oh VRAINS episode 2 thoughts
Catch the Wind! Storm Access
First off we have a brief explanation about Speed Duel from Ignis. I pretty much explained it as well last week, but mine was slightly longer. I guess the anime isn’t going to apply everything.
Now, I made a mistake last week. Since Yūsaku said the word “regulation”, and the subs translated it as the “3 main rules for the Monster Zone”, I assumed that’s what he was saying. Ok, Japanese sentences can be very vague and sometimes you kinda need a context to know exactly what the speaker is referring to. I can’t blame the subbers for interpreting it like that because it could have been that and still make sense.
Anyway, the main focus on this part is that Yūsaku, somehow, knew about Speed Duels. They died out 5 years ago, I guess after the Hanoi attack, and really few have heard of it. However, he recalled something about them, despite hearing about them for the first time from Kusanagi and getting the details now, from Ignis.
Hmm, I like the font they chose for the names and Life Points. Actually, aesthetically, I liked what they did with the duel.
Seriously...the first thing he said was that Playmaker was standing out more than him >_> That’s not something you say in this kind of situation...
What kind of twist of fate is this? xD It’s really funny when you think about it: Shima considers Yūsaku annoying (let’s not forget the dialogue from last week), while Kusanagi is the person Yūsaku trusts the most.
Wow, that was a close one.
I’ve been wondering about this: if someone gets hurt in Link VRAINS, what happens to them in real life? And I’ve got the answer rather quickly. Mental damage, huh...I wonder if the writers will expand more on this in the future.
I don’t get why Cracker Dragon had to crush into the building and not follow the Knight. For the impact, maybe...?
The lines on the costume glowing during a deceive draw, huh? It could be either for the aesthetics, or it means something. Either way, we’ll find out much later, I guess.
I want to praise the writers for giving Yūsaku a bad hand right from the beginning. I don’t think there was something like this in the anime before, so it refreshing and overall nice to see it. Especially because it happens quite a lot in real life as well. Of course, it feels extremely good when you draw what you want and manage to escape a bad situation xD
And we have another interesting happening here, ad that is everyone’s reaction to Playmaker using the Cyberse archetype (it was initially spelled “Cyverse”) and the fact that it is connected to the Cyberse World, the one Revolver attempted to destroy. This will definitely be important later on.
Oh, so they added Skills here as well. The Speed Duel format for the real world with real cards doesn’t have that, but they are present in the Duel Links application. Adding them in the anime might turn out good. Ignis already gave a few examples, but there are really lots of kinds. I’m going to give some from Duel Links: starting the duel with a certain Field Spell activated, seeing what card you’ll draw next, or my favorite one, Balance, which makes the starting hand reflect the balance of the deck (which prevents me from getting a bad starting hand most of the time). I’m thinking that the duels might get more entertaining with Skills.
This Knight can draw two cards instead of one. Hmm, I don’t think it’s that overpowered as it might look, but it can put the opponent to a big disadvantage, depending on the cards drawn. In a way, this scene is also to showcase Hanoi’s hacking capabilities.
Phew, I got worried there for a moment. But this rescue scene was awesome. I didn’t expect that things like creating a whip out of a flower-like object can be done. And, since Aoi didn’t do anything last episode (and in that situation it was understandable because she could have been eradicated if she didn’t run), this is a good thing for her characterization.
A nice little detail here: displaying the effects written on the cards. Even more, this one has 3 effects and Yūsaku has to choose one of them. I liked how each one was shown, one after another.
Again, people actually reading what’s written on their cards is a rare sight in the anime, so I’m glad it was added.
First he almost crushed into a building, then he fell off the hoverboard, now he gets swallowed by a tornado...Wow. The writers sure know how to keep our attention.
To think Ignis planned this out. Now I understand what was Kusuanagi talking about the Monsters in the wind. And it even works with Yūsaku’s Skill. I wouldn’t say it’s broken, since it can only be used if the player’s Life Points are low. And it’s completely random what you get. The conditions seem fair enough to me. I think it’s a pretty interesting one and it does make things more exciting. Hopefully, the other characters will have Skills just as interesting.
And we get he glowing lines again.
More importantly, these flashbacks must hint something. Here we see Yūsaku and other children being carried out of some restricted zone by the police. Not sure what happened there, but I really want to find out.
Also, notice that there are 6 children in total (it goes with the 6 colored birds in the opening and I guess there were also 6 AIs at the beginning of episode 1).
Next, we get a look at Kusanagi’s brother...That’s really disturbing...and what he said about saving him from the dark...
Hmm, when I saw this, I remembered what Ignis said about receiving mental damage. I wonder if he got hurt so badly in Link VRAINS because of Hanoi and that happened...
And lastly, we learn that Yūsaku met someone who encouraged him at some point. The voice that was telling him to wake up in the first episode and the one we hear now might belong to this very person.
Gotta say that the plays after he got out of the tornado were exciting. And we finally get the Link Summoning demonstration.
He said at some point something peculiar, about an Extra Monster Zone. According to the new rules, you have to place the summoned Monster from the Extra Deck there. No matter if it’s Fusion, Synchro or Xyz.
I’m going to use this screenshot to explain the rest, since it will be easier. At the bottom, we have Yūsaku’s 3 Normal Monster Zones, the ones on the top side being the Knight’s. In the middle, there are two Extra Monster Zones. Which means that there can only be summoned one Extra Deck Monster (the other zone is for the opponent). With Link Monsters, the placement of the cards is also important because of those triangle marks (Link Markers). And the anime gives the example with Decode Talker gaining 500 ATK for each Monster the Markers point to. There were only 2, so its ATK rises by 1000.
(Hope I didn’t make it sound complicated...)
Yūsaku being savage with telling the Knight that he has no right to call himself a Duelist xD Gotta admit, the guy was overconfident, and there was also that hacked Skill.
Wow. I can’t believe the episode ended there. It didn’t feel like 20+ minutes passed to be honest. And it was only a duel.
Judging from the preview of the next episode, they sure aren’t wasting time.
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Design techniques for email newsletters
Crystal Ledesma is a driven and enthusiastic visual designer and email developer, currently working at Zillow Group. She focuses on establishing email design systems, for visual brand consistency, improved email rendering, and operational efficiency.
Expert Diaries from Zoho Campaigns connects avid email marketers to the experts in this space, and help them learn some best practices and tips. Our aim is to connect email geeks and form a community that learns email marketing from one another.
As we sat down with Crystal Ledesma for an interview, here’s a whole lot of things she discusses about designing impeccable newsletters for your brand, that keep up with the current email marketing trends.
1. Hi Crystal, it’s great to have you as a part of our Expert Diaries. Let’s start with a little discussion about your background. How did you get involved in email visual designing and developing?
Like most of us, I ended up in email accidentally. I had just finished going back to school for web design and development, and while at my husband’s company holiday party and chatting with attendees, I met someone who worked at ExactTarget. Turned out they needed someone to work on email development and after being encouraged to apply, I was hired and was trained on how to convert my skills to email on the job.
2. What are some of your favorite email design hacks for budding email marketers?
One of my favorite email design hacks is thoughtful use of transparency in images. I see that being used in a lot in InVision and Emma email heroes, and it gives emails a much more unique look and feel that’s less “boxy” and more organic. I would encourage marketers to subscribe to both companies to be inspired.
If you are a marketer that also has to code, one of my favorite design hacks is ghost tables for Outlook! Especially if you are in the B2B space. Ghost tables will be your best friend.
3. For a couple of years now, accessibility in email marketing has been a major focus for designers and marketers. Inspite of all the buzz and efforts around accessible designs, do you still think there are some unaddressed challenges?
Time is always the challenge, I think. We are all working and moving so fast and are always facing multiple deadlines and sometimes that means accessibility considerations are skipped or are a “nice to have” and keep getting pushed aside.
Ultimately, it is on us to make accessibility a priority. Whether that means we implement accessibility ourselves by making it part of our immediate workflow, or being the person to speak up and make the case to leadership that accessibility is important and that it needs to become part of our workflow.
As a designer you can incorporate using a color contrast checker and color blindness simulators as you design. For developers, following guidance from resources like Litmus is a great place to start. If you need a place to start, adding the HTML attribute role=”presentation” to tables and always including alt text for images will make a difference for users with accessibility needs.
Accessibility can also become the default if you have a design system or snippets in place for creating emails. Setting up accessibility needs in the code as the default ensures all emails created using the design system or snippets are already accessible, no additional work required.
4. What in your opinion should a typical newsletter be made up of and why?
It depends on the industry and the subscribers. There are newsletters that list bite-sized information with CTAs that lead to more in-depth information, some with or without images, and then there are newsletter where all the information is in the email itself. The only “should” is that you should test your newsletter and see what your subscribers respond to.
5. Does an email’s design influence its inbox placement? If so, can you tell us some design techniques that can be used to enhance the delivery of emails to a recipient’s inbox?
There are not any design specific ways to influence inbox placement in the typical sense. That mostly has to do with deliverability, targeting, timing and how engaged subscribers are. However, clean and thoughtful design always helps support engagement, which in turn can help to influence inbox placement.
6. Sending an email and previewing it on different devices or clients are two different stories altogether. Have you come across any experiences of broken links and unsupported fonts in emails happening only in certain ESPs or clients while working perfectly in the rest? What are some lessons you picked up from those experiences?
The concept of experiences being broken in some clients and working perfectly in the rest is the constant push and pull of email design decisions and development decisions. At my current job, the most common email clients our subscribers have are many versions of Outlook desktop, Gmail and iPhone.
Creating designs and coding emails that look good across all of those very different email clients is always a challenge. I always imagine the scene from Star Wars: The Last Jedi when BB-8 is trying to repair Poe’s X-Wing mid-flight, and one fix means something else breaks, and fixing that breaks something else, and so on.
The lesson I picked up is how to weigh what is a must-have vs a nice-to-have with our designs, and always going with the must-have. The must-have means ensuring our email content is clear and legible across our subscribers inboxes, even if that means we do not get to do the unique and fun designs every time.
7. Can a bad email design lead to more unsubscribes? If so, in what ways?
I definitely think so. The “what, why and how” of your emails are supported by the content of course, but the design is supposed to showcase that content clearly. If it’s always unclear, the subscriber will not see the value in your emails, and will definitely hit the unsubscribe link.
8. It’s time for some email design statistics! In your opinion, what should be the typical numbers for the below attributes?
a. CTA button touch target size
There’s a great article on uxmovement.com that discusses optimal size for mobile buttons. At minimum, 42px in height should be the target size. For width, it can depend on the brand’s preference, but I would not recommend anything under 250px wide due to mobile use.
b. White spaces—frequency and height
White space is a fantastic way to both keep your design looking sleek and guide the eyes around your email. White space should be used anytime you are going into a new concept (e.g. between hero and a secondary), and of course some white space should be used within a hero as well. For Zillow Premier Agent, we’ve found that an average of 20px of white space within a hero itself and either 30px or 40px of white space between concepts.
c. Responsive email width—for desktop, mobile, laptop, monitor, and tablet
We lean toward 600px on desktop due to the email preview pane being limited to 600-640px on many email clients. That being said, there are some awesome responsive emails that I’ve seen start at 900px width for desktop, but we have not been able to explore wider designs quite yet. Due to the variety of mobile and tablet devices of our subscribers, we have our media queries break point at 480px, which is generally recommended. However, it should depend on each company and the most common email clients and devices being used by their subscribers.
9. How have you seen technology impact email design and development of late, and what are some challenges you’ve faced?
Most recently, dark mode is the big one. Design decisions in the past did not have to consider the usage of dark mode at all. Now as dark mode becomes more common, we are starting to see via testing that some designs do not translate well. This is a newer and unique challenge we will be facing and working on to improve.
10. As we approach the end of 2019, what are some email marketing design trends to watch out for in 2020?
Design trends that consider dark mode is definitely one to watch out for in 2020. Right now we’re all working in “fix it” mode but eventually I could see designs just for dark mode being very intentional.
The other trend that impacts email design but will be more internal-facing is email design systems. Design systems are a concept and tool that has been used for a while now for product and web design, but it is a newer concept for the email world. The more people keep hearing about email design systems, and especially when they learn about the operational efficiency and potential for major ROI, the bigger trend it will become in 2020.
11. We’re all familiar with some email design acronyms like KISS, which means “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” As a designer, do you have or follow an acronym of your own?
Not an acronym, but I often follow the saying “it depends.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There is nothing in email design or email in general that is exactly one size fits all. Email design and related decisions all depends on the industry, the brand, team resources, subscribers and the subscribers email client share.
Drilling down even further, even when designing for a specific company and their subscribers, each email design can also depend on the type of message being sent. So, it depends!
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Why SEO 2019 Had Been So Popular Till Now?
A good SEO keyword technique is like magic, working at the rear of the scenes to boost your own rankings on the search motors. It's maybe not an ideal SEO page title because of the multiple distinct services, however the structure might give rise to rankings for some long-tail keyword phrases. SEOs will have to collaborate carefully with designers and developers in order to prioritize technical SEO and functionality search engine ranking factors to get a competitive edge. Further SEO Smart hyperlinks allows you to set upward your personal keywords and set associated with matching URLs. When search engine optimization SEO will not involve ethical practices, the particular website may have low presence on Google or maybe be eliminated from the Google index. An SEO technique is usually considered white hat if this conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deceptiveness. As an SEO, which indicates that you have to considerably raise your standards around high quality content and links in purchase to achieve top search motor rankings. Most SEO focuses on customizing for Google's search engine, which usually dominates the overall search marketplace with a share of more than 90%. 7. Social indicators may even become more essential to SEO as time passes. Individual Grain is really a electronic marketing agency that helps businesses like Uber, Amazon and Salesforce grow their revenues online making use of SEO plus paid advertising. This may be a growth chance with regard to content marketing-specific agencies and the necessary and justified budget series item for in-house SEO groups. SEO includes both technical and creative components necessary to improve rankings, drive visitors, and increase awareness in lookup engines.
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Over the particular last 20 years SocialSEO provides grown to be the biggest full digital marketing firm within the state of Colorado, delivering Social Media, Pay Per Click on and SEO in Denver, Co Springs, Boulder and across the particular State. Lastly, Amazon will dominate web commerce queries in 2018 via Alexa voice, touch, along with other innovative interfaces, leaving many e-commerce SEOs in order to focus in on the content-side of their marketing. If you could use something like 20 times more chances for internet traffic, three times better benefits than social, and returns in investment that will only raise over time, SEO must always be a priority. Since artificial intelligence search motor optimization is in its preliminary stage, the impact of synthetic intelligence in marketing is heading to be felt in 2019 and 2020. So nearby businesses have to put unique effort into maximizing their SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION efforts for local visibility, which usually means doing things like customizing their Google Places pages. All these types of steps are used by the particular company to provide the greatest search engine optimization services in order to its clients in Thailand, below the Thailand SEO concept. Keywords and phrases, although it is not being as important to be able to SEO ranking as they after were, still play a significant part. •Social Press Optimization - SEO services make use of various means of social press optimization for clients. Lots of people are usually now asking, How will AI and Voice Search impact SEO”?
SEO is really the shortened phrase for search motor optimization. I believe SEO within 2019 will largely be such as SEO in 2018, with the particular exception of some big” Search engines update that wipes out sufficient websites to make people think the algorithms have grown significantly smarter. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION works by optimizing a home page's pages, conducting keyword research, plus earning inbound links. The organization offers excellent SEO packages that will help rank the clients' internet site within top three pages associated with search engine pages. That can make SEO an ideal lead era tool, because when searchers stick to links back to your web site, you have the chance in order to convert them to leads, plus later make sales. Whenever asked to point out ideas that are unique towards the particular web, most people will arrive up with two main types: SEO and social media. How many links do a person need for good off-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION? If you are carrying out a professional SEO audit to get a actual business, you are going in order to have to think like the Google Search Quality Rater Plus a Google search engineer to offer real long-term value to the client. 44. Give your own social media profiles an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION boost. 10% of our experts believe that will there's likely to be the lot of focus on cellular in 2019, as older SEOs realize optimizing for desktop will be pointless. White hat SEO is not really just about following guidelines, yet is about ensuring that the particular content the search engines indexes and consequently ranks will be the same content the user will see.
Something which usually was troubling about 2017, plus as we head into 2018, could be the new wave of companies merely bolting on SEO since a service without any true appreciation of structuring site architectures and content for both human beings and search engine understanding. A big part of SEO is within creating content which is focused towards the keywords that lookup engines users are searching regarding. Building links could be the big part of your work as an SEO because this plays such a big component in the algorithms used simply by search engines to look with regard to the order of their outcomes. Search engines like google through the King Google to supplementary ones like Bing and Bing rank the websites on the particular basis of its SEO. It's mainly because creating content and ranking this in Google is what SEOs do! SEO solutions look at their links, through where their links are arriving, and what keywords they possess made a decision to optimize for their sites. Hobo UK SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION - A Beginner's Guide (2018) is really a free pdf file ebook you can DOWNLOAD TOTALLY FREE from here (2mb) that will contains my notes about traveling increased organic traffic to the site within Google's guidelines. My conjecture is that the biggest SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION trend in 2019 is heading to be Amazon search. TYPES OF SEO Right now there are two major types associated with seo, white hat search motor optimization (the ‘good' kind), plus black hat (the 'not therefore good' kind). Google's always tweaking its lookup algorithms, so there's no promise that SEO practices that proved helpful in the past will maintain working in the future.
You will become introduced to the foundational components of how search engines such as google work, how the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION landscape is promoting and exactly what you can expect in the particular future. The SISTRIX Toolbox consists associated with six modules 1) SEO, 2) Universal, 3) Links, 4) Advertisements, 5) Social and 6) Optimizer. Low-quality content can severely impact the achievements of SEO, within 2018. When your own SEO starts building strong reasons, competitors can start maligning your own SEO backlinks. ” With content marketing spend anticipated to reach $300 billion by 2019, this statistic is worrisome. Now the electronic marketing companies know how in order to use AI for SEO, plus in coming years AI may dominate in developing the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION strategies of the digital marketing and advertising companies. Ray Cheselka, AdWords and SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Manager at webFEAT Complete, the design and SEO agency, states that in 2019 search objective Never Mess With SEO 2019 And Here's The Reasons Why will continue to become even more important. Expert writers of SEO articles can take the time to study the particular industry or specialized niche market. 2 tools to help with regional SEO are BrightLocal (for rankings) and MozLocal (for local lookup optimization). Concerning on-page SEO best practices, I usually link out to other quality appropriate pages on other websites exactly where possible and where a individual would find it valuable. It includes a favorite Routine Table of SEO Success Factors”, a 9-chapter guide to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION basics, and links to several from the site's most useful blog posts.
Looking deeper: In present-day SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, you can't simply include since numerous keywords as possible to achieve the people who are searching for you. SEO stands for Search Motor Optimization and refers to strategies you can use to assist ensure that your site rates high in the results associated with search engines like Google. It blends search positions and search volumes in the manner that makes it even more relevant, insightful and easier in order to understand than any other SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION performance tracking approach. About: Advanced Search Summit is usually designed for advanced SEO specialists, digital marketers, and analysts in enterprise and mid-market sized businesses who want advanced tactics plus techniques. SEO stands for seo. ” It is the process associated with getting traffic in the Blog9T free, ” organic, ” editorial” or natural” search results on search motors like google. If you're believing about ramping up SEM attempts to complement organic SEO, become sure to take a appearance at Google Adwords ' Research Ads page. The large a part of SEO is producing valuable, high-quality content (e. h., blog articles and web web page copy) that your audience will certainly find helpful. SEO alone cannot perform much for your business yet when combined with content marketing and advertising, social internet marketing, email marketing and advertising, mobile marketing and PPC marketing and advertising, it can help businesses achieve the pinnacle of success on the web.
SEO differs from local lookup engine optimization in that the particular latter is targeted on customization a business' online presence therefore that its web pages will be going to be displayed simply by search engines when a consumer enters a local search intended for its products or services. The challenge for webmasters plus SEO is that Google won't want company owners to rank regarding lots of keywords using autogenerated content especially when that creates A LOT of pages upon a website using (for instance) a list of keyword variants page-to-page. In time, the collection between social media marketing management, channel advancement, and SEO will be considerably blurrier than it really will be today. In 2016, SEO experts have got determined which factors are nearly all likely to affect your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION rankings. Customers and marketers will need in order to begin implementing multiple forms associated with digital marketing tactics including compensated search, social media marketing, nearby SEO, in addition to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION if they hope to control a given Google SERP. Before beginning with this, the SEO experts should visit your business and realize each and every aspect associated with your company so that these people can help your achieve your own marketing goals. What really matters in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION in 2018 is what a person prioritise today to ensure that will in 3-6 months you may see improvements in the high quality of your organic traffic. Mobile will account for 72% of US digital ad invest by 2019.
Content written simply by customers gives sites legitimacy plus it earns SEO juice each from manual and automatic ranking systems. Throughout 2018, this trend is in the rise and if an individual invest in making your internet site mobile friendly you will delight in higher ratings in 2019 as well. When making a web site for Google in 2018, a person need to understand that Search engines has a long list associated with things it will mark websites down for, and that's generally old-school SEO tactics which are usually now classed as ‘webspam‘. Besides getting social plus having a good time, your own social media profiles can favorably affect your SEO efforts. Since so many people have confidence in voice search being the craze in 2019, I, Nicole Bermack (this article's author), am coining the word VSO - voice research optimization. Clever brands and agencies are changing new SEO, social and content material marketing strategies to join their particular customer conversations. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the art plus science of getting pages in order to rank higher in search motors such as Google. A person can audit your page's SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION health, compare SEO metrics with regard to a number of pages, plus analyze both external and inner links on any given internet page. Content companies that will offer SEO content creation providers are experts in creating content material that are not only enhanced for search engine rankings yet also add value for your own business in terms of brand name awareness, customer engagement and enhanced sales.
One thing is definitely crystal clear: if you need people to discover your function, you need search engine marketing (SEO). This almost all means when you're thinking regarding your SEO strategy, you require to think about how your own social networking strategy fits into the particular puzzle, too. As your visitors slowly increases, ensure that you include various other SEO strategies (like adding exterior and internal links, guest publishing, etc) to engage more customers and keep your metrics higher. Google has still left a very narrow band associated with opportunity when it comes in order to SEO - and punishments are created to take you out associated with the game for some period while you cleanup the infractions. Head of Marketing, Shiny Edstrom, at BioClarity, a San Diego based health-science company, thinks that SEO is going in order to see a decreased importance within 2019, and SEOs should begin ensuring they're competent in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. The best rank that you could notice the profile with contact information and maps on right hands side of search result web page is achieved after long process for using SEO tactics. Numerous search engine optimisation. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the technique of customization a website for search motor discovery and indexing. SEO is actually a technique which search motors require that sites must improve properly, so that they show up high in search results. The European Search Honours is an international competition that will shines the spotlight around the best SEO and Content Marketing firms in Europe.
A reputable SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION company carries on along with your Company Profile and then do these profile building and then Nearby Business Listing Optimization. Our first five steps had been dedicated to on-page SEO methods Link-building is the primary goal of off-page SEO, and will be also an enormous factor within how search engines rank your own web pages. So far since I know, this only functions for HTML or CSS web pages - I don't go very much for Flash websites, and I actually am unsure how that cookware out regarding search engines plus SEO. In fact, a huge part of SEO in 2018 is writing for humans PLUS search engines (also known since: SEO copywriting”). SEO is the significant part of any web marketing strategy. Canonical: This connect to handles content syndication, which basically allows other blogs to post your projects (similar to franchising) with no hurting your website's SEO ranking—simply with the addition of a rel=canonical can obtain your brand and content away on the web in several outlets, ensuring a greater get to and bigger audience without harming your own search results. We are usually offering affordable search engine search engine optimization SEO services to clients throughout the globe. If you want the strong social media strategy, a person simply can't ignore SEO. Another SEO-related plugin, W3 Total Cache is used to improve the performance of your Wp blog or a website simply by integrating features such as content material delivery networks to be capable to reduce the loading instances for your pages.
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How To Wear The Men’s Logo Fashion Trend
http://fashion-trendin.com/how-to-wear-the-mens-logo-fashion-trend/
How To Wear The Men’s Logo Fashion Trend
At the turn of the decade, a glut of opinion pieces decried the death of the subculture. Mostly white, middle-aged rock journos moaned that there were no proper ‘scenes’ anymore. That fast fashion and Spotify had killed youth movements. That everyone dressed the same, in some version of post-Libertines skinny jeans and tees. That individuality had died in the 1990s with Britpop.
Roll on eight years and the NME’s dead, the kids have never dressed more disparately and, like a renegade master, the nineties are back once again (if you get that reference, you’ve probably already got the look in your attic). Where once you needed some knowledge to pick your Blur fans from your Oasis fans, today’s style tribes come pre-branded.
By embracing logos in a way not seen since the days when Tommy Hilfiger sold in shops other than TK Maxx, it’s easy to pick the skatewear kids from the high-fashion set, the wannabe grime MCs from the Rafsessives.
All of which makes logomania at once a trend that anyone can jump on, and one that’s fraught with peril. Unlike in the nineties, when logos were a slightly less gauche way to flaunt your wealth than wearing a coat made of cash, this time around they embody a convoluted blend of irony, status, lack of status, in-joke and fashion knowledge. Get it wrong and you’re your dad in the Supreme queue. Get it right and you’re Jonah Hill in Palace, quietly breaking the internet.
Here are four key ways to be the latter.
Wear It Loud And Proud
The OG logo move, both back then and right now, is the branded tee. “Gucci kick-started this trend [in recent years] with its logo T-shirt,” says Luke McDonald, a stylist at online wardrobe service Thread. Though street- and sportswear brands have never abandoned their graphics, the luxury brands had steered more minimal since the noughties as customers preferred a subtler display of wealth.
“But that doesn’t translate well to Instagram,” McDonald says. “Logos do.” Gucci’s tee, while still nosebleed expensive, let consumers buy into the hottest brand in fashion without shelling out four figures. Plus, everyone could see what you’d bought and where it was from.
Labels high and low followed suit. “At the moment, you can’t have too much,” says Nick Eley, head of men’s design at ASOS. “There’s a real trend for all-over or huge, oversized logo prints.” These are not for wallflowers. You are, in essence, paying a brand to act as their advert, so make sure your go-to is more than a pretty picture. “You should pick a label that feels authentic to your style and lifestyle,” says McDonald.
Logo clashing is doable, but tricky. It’s better to give your chosen brand the spotlight unshared. “I would treat logos in the same way I treat prints,” says Chris Hobbs, menswear fashion editor at MatchesFashion.com. “One at a time, otherwise your outfit will start to wear you.” If you look like an F1 driver, dial back.
As A Subtle Wink
There are always ways to dip a toe into any fashion trend, even one that’s as look-at-me as this. On the high street, the approach tends to be OTT – the logos themselves have less clout, so their owners need to go big lest the punters go home. But among the labels with more cache, even those that have long been logo-shy have leaned into the trend. Albeit gently.
“The subtlest way to approach logos is to pick a label that doesn’t visibly brand their product,” says Eley,” but which has a particular sign-off or print that is immediately distinguishable.” Think Burberry’s check, recently reintroduced after being binned in the noughties because of its popularity among the less-well-heeled, and Margiela, with its signature stitches.
For a pocket-money take on that approach, look for either tonal logos – think a white-on-white Stan Smith, or black-on-black Nike swoosh – or stick to trousers, where the branding is subtler. Joggers in particular, with the logo relegated to the side stripe, tick off two trends at once.
“You can also restrain the impact of your logos with layering,” says McDonald. “Under a plain hoodie or an open shirt, you just get the flash of a logo on a tee.”
With A Healthy Dose Of Irony
Let’s make one thing clear: all logos have some sense of irony. Those worn in earnest are too thirsty to be tolerated; today, status is earned by not looking like you care about status at all. Confused? Good. Because that’s the headspace you need for Gucci’s self-inflicted bootlegging, by which the brand flogs price-of-a-suit T-shirts with the word ‘GUCCY’ written on them.
Fair cop. Your correspondent once purchased a Palace tee in which the enormous rear logo reads ‘Placae’. It seemed funny at the time, but is in reality obscene. Also, no one has ever noticed the typo. However, ridiculous as all this might seem, it does introduce the one thing that’s never been fashion’s strong suit. “Fun,” says Benns. “Gucci is having fun with its typography. And I think that’s interesting.”
For those without the bank balance for knock-off versions at luxury prices, the streetwear world offers the time-honoured logo flip. “It’s always been about democratising those brands and the things they represent,” says McDonald. “It makes them accessible and relevant to street culture.” Bowlcut Garms does a number of neat brand mashups and Sports Banger has reworked everything from Helly Hansen (as Hackney Hardcore) to the NHS and Nike logos.
In Your Pocket
Gucci doesn’t make its billions from the stuff in Jared Leto’s wardrobe. Rather, it’s the accessible, affordable products that let everyone else buy into the brand without a call to Wonga.
“That used to mean fragrances,” says McDonald. “But now, every brand has a range of lifestyle accessories, from phone cases to lighters to keychains, all of which have the logo front and centre.”
For the man looking to rep the logo trend without going all fanboy, it’s the gentlest way in. For the genuine fanboy, it’s the most affordable.
Key Brands To Wear For The Logo Trend
Luxury Brands
Gucci
The word Gucci is almost as heavily ingrained in the lexicon of fashion connoisseurs as the word fashion itself. It’s a name synonymous with luxury, glamour and style – which is probably why people are so keen to have it plastered all over their chests.
The respected Italian fashion house has been one of the key high-end labels spearheading the logo trend, and also the one having the most fun with it. Pick from printed tees, hoodies, bags, trainers and more, all boasting that big-ticket green and red branding.
Off-White
If the logo trend is all about irony, then no brand is a better example than Virgil Abloh’s acutely self-aware Off-White. Abloh’s imprint has received almost universal praise for its tongue-in-cheek use of branding, logos and labels – perhaps most notably recently in its collaborative effort with Nike, ‘The Ten’.
He must be doing something right. After all, you don’t get named creative director of one of the most esteemed high-fashion labels on the face of the earth – Louis Vuitton – for not having your finger on the pulse.
Balenciaga
There are few brands that can get away with flogging a pair of plain white socks emblazoned with their logo for just under £100. Balenciaga is one of them.
Ever since Vetements’ Demna Gvasalia – a man known for his love of bold logos – took the reins of the Spanish luxury label, not-so-subtle branding has become one of its calling cards. Think embroidered baseball caps that cost more than your rent, politically-themed pool sliders and plenty of nods to popular culture.
Mid-Priced Brands
Tommy Hilfiger
When you take the nineties resurgence into account, it’s hardly surprising that Tommy Hilfiger’s legendary flag logo is flying high once again. Tommy was a staple fixture in the world of fashion 20 years ago and with a little help from the vintage resellers of the social media generation, is now back in full force.
Block colours, bold fonts and nineties styling are what it’s all about. And at manageable price points, adding a dash of Hilfiger to your wardrobe won’t leave you living off super noodles until payday.
Calvin Klein
It’s always been about the logos at Calvin Klein. When that now-iconic branded waistband first peered over the top of a pair of jeans, a legend was born, cementing the Calvin Klein font as a symbol of style and sex for men all over the world.
Today it’s more than just nice underwear, though. The American label has taken that same typeface and applied it to tees, hoodies, outerwear and more, staking its claim as one of the leading brands in the logo trend.
Levi’s
With little more than a small red tab, sewn onto the back pocket of its jeans to denote where they came from, Levi’s has hardly been a brand renowned for its heavy use of logos. However, in recent years, that’s all changed.
Many of Levi’s casual offerings now feature the brand’s sportswear logo, which first made an appearance at the 1984 LA Olympics. Its T-shirts are quickly becoming as iconic as their denim siblings, making now as good a time as any to get involved.
Streetwear Brands
Palace
In less than a decade, London-based label Palace has gone from fledgling skate brand to fashion royalty. Its unique sense of humour and beautifully designed ‘triferg’ logo have made it the imprint of choice for clued-up skaters, streetwear connoisseurs and fashionistos alike.
The Palace logo and font face have become common sights in skate parks, at fashion weeks and on the shoulders of the hip-hop elite. And with seasonal drops that see the streets of Soho jammed up with hypebeasts from London and beyond, there’s only one other label that comes anywhere close…
Supreme
Undisputed king of logos, Supreme is well known for its unfaltering ability to slap a bogo (that’s ‘box logo’ for the uninitiated) on anything – like, literally anything – and have people dropping their life’s savings to get their hands on it.
That instantly recognisable white-on-scarlet trademark is one of the most famous logos in fashion, made all the more coveted by the amount of sheer dedication (and money) it requires to obtain.
Stussy
The logo thing may be what’s hot right now, but California-born street/surfwear originator Stussy has been on it since day dot. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Shawn Stussy’s eponymous label in the first place, we might not be sat here writing this at all.
Known for its graffiti-inspired script logo, Stussy was the brand that pioneered heavy branding and made it one of streetwear’s calling cards. Plus, unlike similar labels, clothes aren’t produced in deliberately limited runs, so getting your hands on a piece is actually an achievable feat.
Sportswear Brands
Adidas
When it comes to bold logos, the big-hitting sports brands have been doing it for longer than most. Adidas’ trefoil logo and three stripe trademark have become two of the most recognisable designs in the history of, well, design.
Worn as a badge of honour by hip-hop heroes such as Run DMC in the eighties, Britpop stars and terrace lads of the nineties, and pretty much everyone else since, the Adidas logo is one of the all-time greats, making it one of the easiest to wear, too.
Nike
Nike’s logo couldn’t really be any simpler, but therein lies its beauty. The Swoosh has permeated every part of the world and you’d be hard pushed to find anyone who doesn’t instantly know what it is. Because of this, it’s an obvious go-to when it comes to getting yourself involved in the logo trend.
The Oregon-born sports label is known for slapping its mark on everything from tees to trackies, sneakers to socks – making it the perfect way to embrace the logo look without going too left field.
Champion
It may have been founded almost 100 years ago, but thanks to today’s obsession with logo-laden sportswear, Champion is now more relevant than ever before. Due to a number of recent high-profile collaborations, the American heritage brand has become a favourite in streetwear circles, while still counting athletes and sportsmen among its customers.
Think hoodies, tracksuit bottoms and tees in its signature reverse weave fabric, all featuring a hearty dose of in-your-face branding.
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