#seems a bit improper to do the one connected with the real guy

[snarkformysanity]

House of Earth and Blood Chapter 2

By the time Danika emerged on the gallery’s showroom floor, Bryce had endured a mildly threatening reprimand from Jesiba about her ineptitude, one email from a fussy client demanding Bryce expedite the paperwork on the ancient urn she’d bought so she could show it off to her equally fussy friends at her cocktail party on Monday, and two messages from members of Danika’s pack inquiring about whether their Alpha was about to kill someone over Briggs’s release.

We open chapter two with this. I feel the "about to kill someone" is a smidge too light-hearted considering it's about, you know, killing someone. But then, I lost count of the amount of times Rhys and co threatened to do that in ACOTAR and absolutely nothing happened, so... yeah. Anyway.

The wolves in this world seem to be of the shapeshifter variety, rather than werewolves, as they're able to control their transformations. It also seems they morph their clothes into their body, and the fact Danika emerges from the shower in wolf form means she doesn't like the clothes Bryce loaned her.

Bryce is planning to accompany Danika, at least partway, as she's trying to find something called Luna's Horn for Jesiba. She's apparently been looking nonstop for the last week. As for why it's so important she find it...

Bryce shrugged. “I haven’t had the balls to ask.”

Good to know. I'm sure this is meant to make Jesiba look scary and her search for the horn a tantilising mystery, but it mostly just makes me not care. If Bryce doesn't, why should I?

Bryce does, however, decide that Jesiba would try to leverage the horn's return... somehow, and informs us that the horn was stolen during the same power outage in which Jesiba's backup generator was so useful. Of course, Bryce herself doesn't make this connection, but, it's there. Taking bets for when Jesiba will be revealed as evil. She is, after all, a woman who is not the protagonist.

Also, apparently they crucify people in the CBD. Not only that, they apparently leave the bodies there long enough for the smell of rotting flesh to be noticeable.

Bryce is from a mountain town named Nidaros. Which interestingly is an actual place, being the medieval name of Trondheim when it was capital of Norway's first Christian kings. I noticed this trend in ACOTAR with the Illyrians and Scythians as well, taking real places/people and just using the name for something completely unrelated. We'll see if the book is a bit more considerate this time.

Bryce frowned. “You really mean to tell me that any of the Heads want a rebel like Briggs at large? They’ll find some technicality and throw his ass right back in jail.”

....I thought they only reason they were even considering releasing him was on a technicality? If every one of the bosses want him in prison, why are the bosses even entertaining the idea that they'll release him in the first place? Also, I get the impression that we're meant to be worried this Briggs guy will be released and feel bad for Danika because of it... but I don't. He's leading a rebellion against oppressive Vanir, remember? Viva la humanity.

Bryce continues to try and reassure Danika, even suggesting that Archangel Micah might send his personal assassin after Briggs... who is in prison, and could presumably be executed without the need for assassins? Eh, whatever. I'm pretty sure this was just to name drop said assassin, which is Umbra Mortis, who has lightning powers, and not shadow powers as the name implies.

When Bryce fucked up, Jesiba usually griped for a few minutes and that was that. When Danika fucked up, it was blasted on news reports and across the interweb.

You.... didn't seriously and unironically rename the internet "the interweb," did you? Really?

Bryce and Sabine had hated each other from the moment the Alpha had sneered at her only child’s improper, half-breed roommate that first day at CCU.

So, in addition to being racist, we now know that Sabine hates both protagonists. She will clearly be evil, likely cartoonishly so. We're also told that Sabine likes drooling over "muscle-bound vampyrs," because our vampires are different here. Also, I'm pretty sure every male character in a Maas book is muscle-bound, so I don't see why it's fair to pick on anyone for liking them. They literally don't have any other choice.

They talk as they walk, and we learn some more things via infodumps. Immortality is not automatic, for instance - instead, it's attained via "the Drop," and Danika is the only member of her pack to have not done it yet.

Then Danika randomly changes the topic to Bryce's brother, so that we can learn that Bryce doesn't like him. She then immediately moves on to ask Bryce where she's going to look for the horn.

“The temple,” Bryce said with a sigh.

You mean, the one place you know it definitely isn't? I mean sure, investigate the scene of the crime, but... have you not done this already? Bryce tells us she's been looking for "days on end." Surely she's already been to the crime scene and must start looking in other places?

“I almost wonder if the power outage was tied to it—if someone shut down the city’s grid to steal it in the chaos. There are about twenty people in this city capable of being that crafty, and half of them possess the resources to pull it off.”

It's Jesiba. That is my guess until further evidence emerges that suggests otherwise. Also, this is an interesting tidbit:

A year of working at the gallery hadn’t sparked anything beyond disgust at the obscene amounts of money that rich people squandered on old-ass shit.

If ACOTAR's complete obliviousness about Velaris's fucked-up class issues is anything to go by, my hopes are not high that Bryce will be anything even remotely close to an anti-bourgeoisie champion. But, who knows, I may be pleasantly surprised.

We learn about Bryce's magic necklace that protects her from spells, and that Alpha wolves apparently have an instinct to "protect at all costs" .....please don't bring back this BS from ACOTAR. I beg.

Bryce's mum, Ember, calls then, and we learn that she's also kind of Danika's adoptive mum, and mum is apparently also into the whole overprotective thing. Oh. Joy. It is one of the tropes I hate the most.

Bryce and Danika spend the conversation lying to Ember, including lying about having plans on the weekend she intended to visit, and lying about one of Bryce's clients coming so they can hang up. Mum immediately texts her:

Ember had written, If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were avoiding us, Bryce. Your father will be very hurt. Danika let out a whistle. “Oh, she’s good.”

No, you guys are just really painfully obvious.

Bryce doesn't respond, and tells us that Danika apparently has a plan. We are not privy to the nature of this plan, though.

They pass by a Gate in the Old Square, which is apparently surrounded by tourists. Where these tourists come from, who could say. Not Bryce. There's just tourists there, and that's that.

“They should make a special access lane for residents to cross the square,” Bryce muttered as they edged around tourists and hawkers.

Bryce is already living her anti-bourgeoisie tendencies, I see. No hypocrisy here at all, no, sir!

Danika is apparently famous, because people are stopping to gawk at her and take photos. She wants to stop and make a wish at the Gate, which is something that is apparently done. We get a description of the gate, and how it's got gems and stuff for all the districts of the city, and I am once again probably not going to be able to remember them. There is so much infodumping going on.

A sign beside it read: Touch at your own risk. Do not use between sundown and sunrise. Violators will be fined. The people in line, waiting for access to the disk, seemed to have no problem with the risks.

And the risks are........?

Well, Bryce doesn't want to tell us. Instead, she and Danika barge forward and cut into line.

a bored-looking city guard—a young Fae female

Yes, we're bringing this BS back from ACOTAR as well. If I have to read about any more "pure male grins" I'm going to break something.

“Official Aux business,” Danika declared with an unnervingly straight face. “It’ll just be a minute.” Bryce stifled her laughter, well aware of the glares fixed on their backs from the line.

Bryce continues to not see anything wrong with this situation.

Some teenage boys recognise Danika then.

Bryce hid her smile as well. It never got old—the awe. Mostly because she knew Danika had earned it. Every damned day, Danika earned the awe that bloomed across the faces of strangers when they spotted her corn-silk hair and that neck tattoo. And the fear that made the lowlifes in this city think twice before fucking with her and the Pack of Devils.

Notably absent - any indication of what Danika has actually done to "earn" this adoration.

One of [the teenagers] stammered, turning his attention from Bryce to Danika, “My—my history teacher said the Gates were originally communication devices.”

Well that was an awkward and random way to bring that up. I can only assume it's going to be important.

Apparently, to use this communication power, the Gate literally sucks magic out of the user, like a vampire. Sorry, vampyr.

Bryce raised her eyes to the bronze plaque above her head. The quartz Gates were memorials, though she didn’t know for which conflict or war. But each bore the same plaque: The power shall always belong to those who give their lives to the city.

......does it not say what it's a memorial for on the plaque? Also, I'm guessing that last line means that's where all the zapped power is going. Taking bets on this being how Bryce will inevitably get her special protagonist power.

Not surprisingly, come weekends, drunk assholes—a category to which Bryce and Danika firmly belonged—became such a pain in the ass with their shouting through the Gates that the city had instituted hours of operation.

Yet it's the tourists who should be fined, clearly. Also, the book seems weirdly..... proud? Of Bryce and Danika being disruptive, obnoxious drunks. Like we're meant to think they're cool for this. I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting old but... yeah. It's not.

The emerald for FiRo lit up, a young female voice coming through to shriek, “Titties!”

See, this is the problem with infodumping too much, too early. I had to go back to work out which district FiRo abbreviated, and it turns out it's the Five Roses district. I don't remember what that district does or who its leader is, and it's too far back for me now to bother going back to look. Information is generally much better remembered when it's presented to us naturally, in context. That's how we learn best. With the way this book mostly does things, we're expected to just remember an arbitrary bullet-list of made up worldbuilding facts and uh. That's just not how our brains work. Not when we're also trying to remember plot and character info and have no way of knowing what's actually important yet.

Danika makes a wish, and then tells Bryce she has to make a wish too.

Instead of just getting on with it, though, Bryce muses on the nature of immortality (apparently it's not complete immortality, just long life) and how she's bestest best friends with Danika and always will be - they do everything together, and plan to undertake the Drop and become (mostly) immortal together. In fact, she's harping so much on it that I'm beginning to think this won't actually be the case. Someone's gonna die in the not-too-distant future. Probably Danika.

They’d take the deadly plunge into their matured power together, encounter whatever lay at the bottom of their souls, and then race back up to life before the lack of oxygen rendered them brain-dead. Or just plain dead.

This doesn't really make it clearer what the Drop is meant to be.

We're told that Danika is going to inherit (from who?) the best powers, the greatest powers, maybe even beyond the Autumn King, whatever that means. And she's not just going to become leader of all the wolves in the city, but all the wolves in the world. But don't worry, she's (allegedly) humble, so she definitely deserves this power.

Twenty-seven was the ideal age to make the Drop, they’d decided together, after years of mercilessly judging the various immortals who marked their lives by centuries and millennia. Right before any permanent lines or wrinkles or gray hairs. They merely said to anyone who inquired, What’s the point of being immortal badasses if we have sagging tits?

I mean, I already knew these two were judgemental assholes, but maybe it's actually intentional? It still doesn't make me like them, though.

We randomly learn about two of their university friends: Fury, who may or may not be a secret assassin for shady powers, and Juniper, who is a faun.

A whole page after walking up to the disk, Bryce finally puts her hand on it. I see now why this book is 800+ pages. I strongly suspect it doesn't need to be.

Bryce sighed, and set her hand on the pad. “I wish Danika would get a manicure. Her nails look like shit.”

I'm so glad it took us an entire page to get here.

They leave, with crowds of people still taking photos of Danika, and eventually reach the point where they'll part, Danika to go to her meeting, Bryce, to the temple where the horn was stolen. They say goodbye, and this then randomly segues into how Danika's mother, Sabine, is a piece of shit (in case we forgot she was going to be evil) and how Danika had such a tragic childhood because of it. Yes, we seem to be going with the trauma conga lines again.

Danika promises to piss off everyone at the meeting, because that's very conducive to getting what you want, apparently, and the chapter finally ends.

So, in summary, the total amount of progress made in this chapter was... walking from Bryce's work. There are 90+ chapters of this shit. Please save me.

[yakocchi]

My Darling’s the Strongest (Scenario Event) // Leonardo

(graphic is separate from the event)

me: wow i wonder what cool and amazing new content there will be for white day week cybird: we heard from no one that u like reprints that only have new ranking avatars. so heres another reprint that only has new ranking avatars me:

…….cybird it’s ok to not make every event have ranking cards. yea i know they make gangbusters versus events without cards, but if it results in less new scenario events overall… that’s not great

anyway, it’s been like 4 months since a new Count scenario event has been released (which is a better track record than several charas) and i wanted to do a longer string of text to test out a keyboard i ordered. yea im very fickle with my output but ehehe what’s new i archive leo events sometimes, so i decided to dredge one up to translate. i actually wanted to do vlad’s first post-main-route event as a sort of celebration for when it would inevitably happen, but then said scenario event appeared and it ended up being an AU. why does this game like AUs so much? the canon universe already pretty farfetched… u literally have dracula and ure telling me u would rather put him in a situation where he would not be dracula. cowards

This event (first released ~July 2020) was made for the 3rd Anniversary of JP Ikevam later that month. The event was split into two parts, where iirc the first part contained the Count, Arthur, and Mozart. Leo was in the second part with Napo and Isaac.

Spoilers under the cut!! Please credit if you take any of it, thenk u (･ω･*) image-heavy!!

…

The master of the manse, from time to time, starts his conversations with the most unexpected topics. One of those “times”, was today.

...

[Count]: “—So, I’d like the two of you to go out for the Best Couples’ Contest.” [Leonardo & Kara]: “Huh…?” As soon as we had excused ourselves into his quarters, the Count had said something completely unexpected. Leonardo and I had responded with a confused noise spilling out of our lips. (The “Best Couples’ Contest” is that event where they pick the best couple in Paris, right?) (I wonder why he suddenly decided to say he wants us to go.) Even as the two of us stood bewildered in front of him, the Count’s smile remained, untarnished. Leonardo then heaved a massive sigh…

[Leonardo]: “Now, I’m used to you telling me crazy things—" [Leonardo]: “But at the very least, could you give us the entire story, O’ great Count?” The Count began to speak once more—

[Count]: “Well—” [Count]: “Last night, I had visited an acquaintance upon them telling me that they had gotten their hands on some good wine.” [Count]: “At one point, they informed me that they were going to hold a contest to determine the best couple.” [Count]: “Then, they asked me if I was acquainted with any prospective couples for it.” Leonardo then took over from Count as if he had read this story before.

[Leonardo]: “Then, in your drunken state you selfishly entered me and the little sweetheart to the contest, did you?” (And that means… the Count thinks me and Leonardo would have a chance?)

The Count responded to Leonardo’s summation of the events with apparent amusement. [Count]: “I do believe I wasn’t drunk at the time, I’ll have you know?” [Leonardo]: “That’s even worse, then.”

[Count]: “Oh my, Leonardo. Is it really all right for you to say that?” [Leonardo]: “Hah?” [Kara]: “gh-…” The Count had turned in my direction— and so Leonardo, as if in pursuit of the gentleman, then turned to face me as well. Their gazes seemed to urge me to confess my true feelings on the matter, and I earnestly comply.

[Kara]: “Ah-, I… I just thought it sounded fun.” [Kara]: “And on top of that, I’d be really happy if everyone acknowledged me and Leonardo as the best couple.” (Even though I’d be nervous to stand in front of so many people,) (I’d be able to boast that such a wonderful person is my lover…) (And I also think it’d be a good opportunity to see if I’m able to become a suitable woman for Leonardo.)

[Leonardo]: “…” A surprised expression appeared on Leonardo’s face for a moment, before it was replaced with a smile…

[Leonardo]: “Shall we partake?” [Kara]: “Huh? Is it okay?” I had blurted out my question, and Leonardo gently patted my head. [Leonardo]: “This situation’s turned into nothing but a good opportunity, so we might as well have some fun and aim to win this thing, yeah?” [Kara]: “gh- Okay…!” Glad that Leonardo was also interested, my voice naturally gained a bounce to it.

[Kara]: “But, I wonder how they’re going to determine the best couple?” Muttering this, the Count then handed me the invitation, which had a general outline of the event written inside. Promptly opening it, written was—

(The contest is to be a few days from now, and I can look forward to what we’ll be tested on… on the day itself?) The portion I wanted to know about most of all hadn’t been written, and I internally slumped my shoulders.   The invitation concluded with a single line— “The key to victory is to have a mind and soul of love towards one another,” (I guess the ‘mind and soul of love’ is supposed to be a hint, but…) [Kara]: “Hmm… With just this, I don’t know what the contest could be about, at all.” [Leonardo]: “Don’t sweat it, sweetheart.” (Huh?) Leonardo brought his face up close to the Count… And as if he had devised a scheme, a mischievous smile had turned the corners of his lips. [Leonardo]: “You’re close with the contest organizer, right? I’m led to believe that they have some sort of hint on ‘em.” [Count]: “Leonardo…?” [Leonardo]: “We may have willingly chose to participate in the contest— but it doesn’t change the reality that it was our lovely Count who dragged us into this in the first place.” [Leonardo]: “So, naturally, you’re gonna cooperate with us, no?”

As a result of forcing the Count (against his will) to spill the details, we were able to make a guess on what we’d be doing in the contest. But…

most everyone else in this event: (thinking hard on what to do bc they dont kno what the contest is going to cover) leo: fuc it CHEAT

…

[Leonardo]: “…” (…Leonardo has an awfully complicated look on his face right now.) In my mind, I think over our discussion from a moment ago:

The organizer of the couples’ contest appears to have hosted several dance contests as well. To put it plainly, the organizer is both a huge socialite and a huge fan of dances. (So, individuals are called from high society circles to be chosen as the “best couple”, and) (The probability of competing based on our dancing… is high.)

[Leonardo]: “Hagh…” [Kara]: “…Hehe.” Seeing Leonardo’s pouting face, I unwittingly laughed. Then— [Leonardo]: “What are you laughing for, sweetheart?”

[Kara]: “I just remembered something from back before we became lovers.” The conversation of that day, the day where a weakness of his had been exposed, replayed in my head—

…

[Leonardo]: “…I can’t dance.” (Huh…?) [Kara]: “You’ve got to be kidding, right…? You can build and play instruments, and yet…” [Kara]: “Is it because you don’t go to many socialite parties to begin with, so you haven’t had many opportunities to dance….?” [Leonardo]: “No, I’ve participated in ‘em the point where I’ve even had a hand in producing those sorts of dazzling venues.” [Kara]: “’Producing’…” (This person really can do anything and everything. No, no, that’s not true…) [Kara]: “Leonardo, the mystery that surrounds you is only getting deeper and deeper.”

[Leonardo]: “I avoided having to do it.” [Kara]: “…’Avoid’?” [Leonardo]: “…Try to imagine it. Me, dancing?” [Leonardo]: “It doesn’t suit me, I don’t have the look required for it…” (…What… is this?)

[Kara]: “…Hehe, ahaha!” [Leonardo]: “…Hey, sweetheart. What are you laughing for?

…

(He said the same thing back then.) Unable to hold it in, I continued to giggle… [Leonardo]: “Don’t laugh.” [Kara]: “I think you’re the one smiling here, though?” [Leonardo]: “…I’m just feeling terribly nostalgic right now.” Answering me, his eyes held a gentle light within them as if cherishing those days, [Kara]: “You still hate dancing, I assume?” [Leonardo]: “Even to this day, I find it embarrassing to do. Radiant, cheerful stuff doesn’t mesh with me. But—" (Huh?)

The second I wondered if Leonardo was going to start something, he suddenly pulled my waist towards him for an embrace… [Kara]: “Woah, woah-…!” Regaining my senses— Led by Leonardo himself, I properly danced. [Leonardo]: “I’m able to dance like the average person now— and it’s all because you came to keep me company.” While I was still surprised, Leonardo dropped a light kiss on my forehead. [Kara]: “Nn-…” Flustered, I looked up to find a completely composed smile on his face… [Kara]: “…ngh-“ An impulse overwhelming me, I lean my head against his chest.

[Kara]: “…Sly as usual.” [Leonardo]: “Hm?” [Kara]: “Even though I thought I had finally found a weakness of yours, you’ll get over that hurdle too pretty soon.” [Kara]: “When you do things like that, you become sly so smoothly, exquisitely.”

(When he shows this side of him… I get driven to work even harder than before so I can catch up to him.) While even feeling a frustration from it, I turned my gaze back to Leonardo.

[Kara]: “It seems like this world is going to become one where there’s absolutely nothing you can’t do.”

[Leonardo]: “…Maybe?” (…Hm?) For a second it felt as if he were pondering over something, a particular emotion washing over his face.

But before I could say anything, I was swiftly embraced, and that thought of mine scattered, and vanished. [Kara]: “l- Leonardo?” [Leonardo]: “Hey, look there, sweetheart.” (Huh?)

Following Leonardo’s gaze— I could see the dusk dying the sky from a distance away. (Pretty…) The view that he showed me, was beautiful.   But, at the same time… my chest was tightened by this sorrow. (Although the scene before our eyes is the same between us, time passes differently between us…) (During moments like this, I feel that difference.) (However— When we became lovers, I had decided that no matter how different we are, I’m going to embrace the present, make the most out of it.) (I’m going to savor even the passing seconds, cherish them… as we live together, as two.)

As if to confirm he was really there, I embraced his warmth in return… [Kara]: “Leonardo, I’m looking forward to the contest.” [Leonardo]: “Mhm.” In the vivid sunset, we smiled to each other.

…

—Time passed, and the night of the contest arrived at last.

…

(W-Wow…) When we had entered the venue in our formalwear, there were several couples eagerly waiting for the contest to start. (All of the people here have to be participants for the contest, huh. …Somehow, my heart’s pounding.) I took a deep breath to calm myself down, and when I did that— Leonardo, as if to soothe my heart, lightly stroked my hair. [Leonardo]: “Why is it necessary for you to feel all anxious?” [Kara]: “Leonardo?” [Leonardo]: “To the point where there’s just no way we can lose to any couple here— I love you, you know.”

[Leonardo]: “—Well, and you?” Inquiring me, his smile was brimming with self-confidence… And caught up in his mood, I smiled cheerfully.

[Kara]: “I love you too— to the point where it’s impossible for us lose to anyone…!”

[Leonardo]: “Heh… Very nice, then.” [Judge]: “—And so, the contest shall begin now. The means of competition is to be by dance.” (Ah-…!) We look to each other, and Leonardo, extending his hand towards me, says, [Leonardo]: “Kara… You’ll do me the honor of a dance, no…?”

PREMIUM END

[Kara]: “Yes, I’d be delighted!” (Even though I was so nervous about this until now… Now, I can’t help but just be excited about it.) (I want everyone to quickly feast their eyes on our dancing, and our bond!) Taking his hand, I nestled close to him as an elegant melody began to echo within the dance hall. To become a flower that offsets the man before me, I step forward—

…

—When the contest had ended without a hitch, the both of us walked along the moonlit Seine as we made our way home. The chilly breeze felt pleasant on my heated skin. [Kara]: “We really were able to win!” (I was able to prove my bond with Leonardo to all of Paris… I’m so happy that I can’t stop a smile from showing on my face.) [Leonardo]: “I did say we wouldn’t lose to anyone, didn’t I?” [Leonardo]: “But, well, to think… the winning prize was a year’s supply of wine of all things. ‘Guess sensuality and allure are as good as goddamn useless to them.”

he’s trying to say that he doesn’t like the prize cuz it isn’t very sensual/sexy (suppose he imagined a prize for a lovers’ contest would be more along those lines). even Arthur in the epilogue is like “…thought the prize for a best couples’ contest would be more special”….

[Kara]: Hehe, it’s a nice prize, isn’t it? Let’s drink it with everyone else in the manse.” [Leonardo]: “If you’re satisfied with it, that’s good, I suppose.” As he spoke, Leonardo looked to be the same as usual, but his eyes reflected some kind of joy from within. (I’m glad that this will become a lovely memory I’ll have about him.) (…But, even then) The very sight of Leonardo of when I had danced with him in the dance hall, wouldn’t leave my head. [Kara]: “Your dancing was really, really stunning.” [Kara]: “As I had always thought… you’re the strongest one around.” [Leonardo]: “What’s all this about, hmm?”

i probably should’ve bothered explaining it last year since i used the title “My Darling’s the Strongest” for the other translation but uh might as well do it now that it’s explicitly used in the story so by “strongest”, it doesn’t necessarily mean physical strength (though it can be). It’s “strongest” as in a form of “mightiest” or “most powerful”, kind of like when someone says “my baseball team is the strongest in the league”,

[Kara]: “I just think that you’re the mightiest lover as there’s nothing you can’t do.” Carried away by the thrill of victory, I professed my thoughts. In doing so Leonardo’s brows lowered, and a bit of a troubled smile graced his lips. [Leonardo]: “If I’m able to put some effort into it, then I guess there’s really nothing I can’t do. But…”

[Leonardo]: “There is something I simply cannot do, no matter how hard I try.” (Huh…?) [Kara]: “Something you can’t do… I can’t imagine such a thing existing.” He was undoubtedly an almighty genius, and was also the type of person willing to confront even his awkward dancing skills head-on.

At my murmurs, Leonardo continued as if the topic was no big deal.

[Leonardo]: “It exists.” [Leonardo]: “I cannot become an ordinary human.”

(gh-…) His words had vanished into the night breeze.

I inadvertently stopped in my tracks, and he stopped as well… and the both of us stood still in that one corner.

In my current view, the moonlight illuminated his figure as he stood before me. [Leonardo]: “As a pureblood vampire,” [Leonardo]: “I give you much loneliness— A loneliness that, if I were an ordinary human, you would never have to experience.” [Leonardo]: “However, if I went and lamented over every single little detail of that truth, I would be rendered unable to be with you. —Thus from the very beginning, I do not intend to lament either.” [Leonardo]: “I’m going to use as much of my power as I possibly can to grant your wishes, and that’s all.” (Using his power, my wishes…) I recalled the exchange we had a few days ago:

…

[Kara]: “Ah-, I… I just thought it sounded fun.” [Kara]: “And on top of that, I’d be really happy if everyone acknowledged me and Leonardo as the best couple.” [Leonardo]: “…”

…

[Kara]: “Did… you say that we should go and try to win the contest… merely because I…” With a smile, Leonardo proceeded to stare intently at me. [Leonardo]: “Well, there’s that, but additionally… I had the same motive as you had.” [Leonardo]: “I also had wanted the both of us to be acknowledged as the best couple.” [Leonardo]: “I wanted news to spread that I had been able to become the man of such a wonderful woman, you know.”   (gh- Leonardo…) Leonardo, whenever and wherever, envelops me in his great, unparalleled affection. Roused by the surging love within me, I went to grip his hand.

[Kara]: “…Leonardo, I want to be by your side tonight, and all night.” (I want to give him, in return for the love I received from him… those same feelings, that same love.) (I want him… to feel my love as well.)

[Leonardo]: “…” [Kara]: “gh- Ah-!” I was suddenly yanked towards him; and almost stumbling over my feet, it had closed the distance between us. Bringing his lips to my ear, he whispered:

[Leonardo]: “What a coincidence. I was just thinking the same thing.”

…

—As soon as we entered his room, we melded, deeply kissing each other. [Leonardo]: “…Hah-, Kara…” He called my name with a wet, heady timbre between kisses, the sensuality of it making me go lightheaded. Crowded atop the bed, he pried my lips open with his finger… [Leonardo]: “Thinking about it, I haven’t received a reward from you yet.” [Kara]: “’Reward’…?” [Leonardo]: “When I’m feeling, touching you like this… I know that you’re not so dumb to be oblivious to what I want?” [Kara]: “ngh-…” Taking a guess on what he desired from me, I slowly brought my face closer to his.

[Leonardo]: “Good girl. Come on— Try to turn me on with a kiss?”

FIN

yes the event really stops here before the epilogue teaser. cybird when a sexi scene is about to start:

since this was a glorified keyboard test, this is mostly a one-off… so don’t expect leo translations from me otherwise ahah

u know, it’s always weird to me that leo’s stuff is always very sorrowful bc of the vast diff in lifespan, humans vs. vampires thing. like, does he not plan to turn her into a vampire? the wedding stuff makes it sound like they’d like to be together forever but they still don’t really like to broach the topic itself……… kinda sus given that the Count’s stuff gets several mentions of biting in events and vlad clearly doesn’t mind biting whenever (and is just waiting for her to give him the go-ahead). ive seen some ppl talk about how maybe leo likes her because she’s human (both as in being a literal human and the figurative idea of being “human”) and honestly……… it is kinda messed up to think about, but i can see it LOL now im not saying the other pureblood x mc relationships are super healthy but that’s a convo for another time

well at least these guys don’t have to ask someone for vampire-turning assistance. im imagining one of the other charas having to ask the Count to bite mc akin to how teenagers have to ask their parents to drive them and their friends around to do stuff…….. who wants to relive that nightmare

also sorry if like leo’s voice doesn’t match up with w/e the official engl localization does. ive literally never played an engl cybird game in my life, so it’s a crime of ignorance i swear. tho imo if they’re not making him sound like a rascal… that’s very lame, im not gonna lie

the epilogue is obviously not available for purchase rn, but please buy it and/or support the game with purchases when you can!!

As always, thanks for reading!

(gif source)

[nothingbutimagines]

Elizabeths (Chapter II)

Pairing: Bad boy!Peter Parker x Reader

Warning: Cursing, death, mentions of suicide

Summary: Y/n is part of her high school’s most powerful and most popular clique, but she disapproves of the other girls’ behavior. When Y/n meets the new boy in school, Peter Parker, and begins dating him, what she has known to be her clique begins to unravel. Starting with the death of the clique leader, Liz Allan, one by one, people Y/n doesn’t like begin to die by her and Peter’s hands. Soon, she realizes that Peter is killing students he hates and begins to try to foil his plans, all while clashing with the new clique leader, Elizabeth “Betty” Brant.

Author: Dizzy

A/N: This is a Peter Parker AU I thought of doing. It’s a Heathers AU!!! This is going to follow a similar plot to Heathers, but of course, I won’t keep everything the exact same. Here, we meet our protaganist, Y/n, and our love interest, JD Peter.

Masterlist Request Any Of These Peter Parker/Tom Holland Masterlist

__________________

Dear Diary,

I know I said I only fuck with the college boys and to hell with the high school ones, but goddamn, I can’t take my mind of off Peter Parker. Especially with him pulling that shit he did with the gun in the commons. 

“God, they won’t expel him. They’ll probably just suspend him for a week or something.” Lizzie insisted, clacking her croquet mallet against your own as you both chuckled. 

“He used a real gun.” Liz scoffed. “They should throw his ass in jail. Doesn’t he know today’s climate? Hasn’t he heard of Columbine?”

“No way.” You argued, leaning forward on your unused mallet as you watched Liz retie her ponytail with that red scrunchie you always hated. “He used blanks. All Peter did was ruined two pairs of pants... maybe not even that...” You and Lizzie began giggling. “I mean, can you bleach out urine stains?”

The sound of Liz knocking her mallet into the red ball and the red ball hitting Betty’s green one was a response enough. The sound was almost deafening as silence fell between you and Lizzie. 

“Ah, yes, Peter.” Liz finally spoke up, “You seem pretty amused. I thought you were over high school guys.” 

“Never say never.”

“What are you going to do, Liz? Take the two shots or knock me out?” Betty asked, her doe like eyes meeting Liz’s, making it clear she had not been paying attention to the conversation at hand. 

“Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?” Liz snapped. “First you ask if you can be red, knowing I am always red...”

You watched as Liz took a step forward, her foot firm on her red ball as she hit the mallet against it, the red ball sending Betty’s green into the flower bed, causing you to wince as Liz grunted triumphantly. 

Liz hit her ball again, this time falling short of the wicket as she groaned, rolling her eyes. Always too cocky too early, Liz.

“Damn.” She cursed. “Anyway, I can say never to high school boys. Especially when I have Steve.” 

“Ah, yes. King Steve.” Lizzie chuckled, taking her shot and getting the yellow ball through the wicket as she squealed. 

“Maybe when you get older and actually reach maturity, you’ll understand the difference between Columbia University man like Steve and a Midtown High boy like Brad “nut-and-bolt” Davis.” 

Lizzie shrugged. “I think Brad’s sweet. Your turn, Betty!” 

Betty pouted, a whine escaping her throat as she navigated getting into the flower bed, trying to avoid the peonies your mother had planted earlier in the week. 

“No pain, no gain!” Lizzie teased.

“Give it up, girl!” You added, both of you howling at Betty. 

You watched as Betty furrowed her brow, leaning down a bit as she hit the ball. You chuckled as it bounced off a tree and then hit the fountain in the yard before rolling perfectly through the wicket. 

“Holy shit!” You gasped, howling in laughter.

“That was incredible!” Lizzie squealed.

“What. A. Shot.” Liz added, shaking her head, a mixture of pride and jealousy in her smirk. 

You began setting up your shot as Lizzie spoke up, your attention half on her and the other half on getting the shot. 

“So, tonight’s the night. Are you two excited?” Lizzie asked, glancing between both you and Liz. 

“I’m giving Y/n her shot. Her first Columbia party. You blow it tonight, girl, and it’s keggers with kids all senior year.” 

You groaned, having missed your shot. As you dropped your mallet, bending down to pick it up, you rolled your eyes as Liz’s attitude. 

“Damn.” You cursed. “So, who’s this Bucky guy I’ve been set up with? Witty and urban pre-law or an idiot and savant art major?”

“Don’t worry.” Liz rolled her eyes. “Steve says he’s very. So he’s very.”

“I doubt it.” You muttered, knowing full well the only boy you wanted to be set up with is the bad boy wannabe from the commons. 

“Lizzie! Your mom is here!” Your mother called before Liz could open her mouth to say anything further. 

“Come on, whoever wants a ride!” Lizzie announced. “Bye, Y/n. Good luck.” 

“Yeah, good luck.” Betty agreed as she rushed past, following Lizzie and Liz up the stairs. 

You dropped your mallet and followed behind the girls, waving them off as they cut through the side of the house and off the property. You took a seat at the table on the patio as your father took a seat beside you, James Patterson book in hand as you mother joined you both, salsa and chips on the platter clutched in her fists. 

“So, what was the first week of Spring Break withdrawal like?” Your father asked, leaning past your slouching figure to grab a chip. 

“Hey, kid, isn’t the prom coming up?” Your mother asked before you could answer your father.

You shrugged with a smile. “I guess it is.”

“Any contestants worth mentioning?” 

“Maybe. I guess you could say there is a bit of a dark horse in the running.”

“Goddamn. Why do I even read these damn Patterson books. Bastard probably doesn’t even write them.” Your father chimed in, looking up at you.

“Because you’re an idiot.” You beamed, laughing alongside him for a moment. 

“Oh, yeah. That’s it.”

“You two...” Your mother smiled, shaking her head.

“Thanks for the salsa.” You rose from your seat. “But I gotta motor if I want to be ready for that party tonight.” 

Dear Diary,

When you fuck with the eagles, you gotta learn to fly. Columbia is Liz kicking my ass out of the nest, whether I like it or not. And to be honest, I don’t wanna fucking fly. 

You opened the car door, the cold night breeze chilling you to the bone as you slammed the door shut, wincing as you knew Liz would scold you for your improper behavior later. Tugging at the length of your sleeves, you walked towards the 7-11.

“Corn nuts!” Liz yelled, half her body out the car window as she yelled at you. 

Without looking back, you waved her off, tempted to just give her the middle finger and call it a night. 

You swung the door open, the warm draft greeting you as you made a beeline to the Corn Nuts, hoping to get in and get out and get this goddamn Columbia party over with. 

“You going to get a Big Gulp with that?” A voice erupted from behind you as you turned around, the bag of Corn Nuts you needed in hand. 

“No, but if you’re nice, I’ll let you buy me a Slurpee.” You teased, meeting Peter’s eyes, or rather, eye, as the other was covered by his falling bang. “You sure do know your 7-11 slang.” 

“I’ve moved around all my life; Baton Rouge, Vegas, Dallas, Suburbia. There’s always been a 7-11. The only stability. Any town, any time, I can pop a chicken sandwich in the microwave and feast on a tornado. Keeps me sane.” He explained, his hand shaking next to his head at the end of his speech. 

“Really?” You asked, “I don’t know, I mean, that thing you pulled today was pretty severe.”

“The extreme always makes an impression, but you’re right, it was pretty severe. Did you say a Coke or Cherry Slurpee?” 

“I didn’t.” You pulled a red vine from the open box at the counter. “Cherry.” 

You smiled, taking a bit out of the vine as you twirled it between your fingers, Peter matching your expression. You took the Slurpee from his hand and followed him to the counter, the silence between you comfortable as he paid for the snacks you collected and you followed him outside. 

You shivered in the cold air, the thought that getting a Slurpee was a good idea now turning in your mind. 

“Great bike.” You nodded to the motorcycle as Peter took a seat on it. 

Liz honked her horn, causing you to tear your gaze from Peter as she gave you an agitated look, only for you to return the gesture with a glare and turn back to Peter.

“Just a humble perk from my uncle’s construction company or should I say deconstruction company?” 

“I don’t know, should you?”

“My uncle seems to enjoy tearing things down more than building things up. Seen the commercial? ‘Bringing every State to a Higher State.’“

“Oh, shit.” You gasped, connecting the dots as you playfully hit Peter’s shoulder. “Peter Parker... Your uncle’s Big Ben Parker Construction. Must be rough, moving place to place.”

Peter shrugged. “Everybody’s got some static in their life. Is your life perfect?”

You scoffed. “Sure, I’m going to a Columbia University party.”

Liz honked the horn again, letting her hand rest on the horn for a little longer as you frowned.

“It’s not perfect.” Your tone was serious. “I don’t really like my friends.”

“I don’t really like your friends either.” Peter shook his head, a low chuckle escaping his lips. 

“It’s like they’re just people I work with and our job is being popular and shit.” 

“Maybe it’s time for a vacation.” 

Liz’s horn blared again as you waved at Peter, starting to walk away. “You’re telling me!”

Dear Diary,

The day I take a vacation, that’ll be the day Liz Allan is dead. Until then, I’m stuck doing my job being her popular lap dog and sucking her dick by telling her how hot and popular she is. 

You could barely suppress a look of disgust as you followed Liz and Steve through the crowded dormitory hallway and into Steve’s dorm. You hated Steve. Sleazy, sweaty, somewhat mediocre looking Steve. You could feel the clot of bile creep up your throat as Steve held the door open for you, the sick smell of cheap beer and sweat so pungent your eyes teared up. 

“You can just throw your coats down on the bed, girls.” Steve instructed as both you and Liz slipped off your coats and did as you were told. 

You watched as Steve walked away for a moment, you assumed to get Bucky as you looked at Liz, who was watching them as well, the doe like look in her eyes telling you that she was in love with him. That for some reason, the clever bitch fell for the disgusting college guy. 

“Y/n, this is Buck.” Steve introduced the other boy, his hand clasped on his shoulder as he guided him to you. 

“Excellent.” Bucky nodded, his eyes tracing over your form as you held back a frown. “Did you girls bring your partying boots?”

“Yeah, let’s party.” Liz smiled, jerking you to get you to do the same. 

Steve chuckled, throwing his arm around Liz as he looked at her. “What can I say? She loves to party.” 

Dear Diary, 

I want to kill and you have to believe... damn pen! 

“So, are you a cheerleader?” Bucky asked, his back against the tacky blue and grey striped wallpaper.

“Not at all.” You gagged, the smell of beer and cigarettes on his breath making you nauseous as you took a sip of the drink in your hand. 

“You’re pretty enough to be one.”

“Gee, thanks.” 

“It’s so great to be able to talk to a girl without having to ask ‘what’s your major?’ I hate that.” Bucky took a sip of his beer before continuing, “So, when you go to college, what do you think you’ll study?”

You have to believe it’s for more than selfish reasons. More than a spoke in my menstrual cycle. You have to believe me. 

Bucky had given up on conversation, you could tell by the way he shifted on his heels uncomfortably. It’s not like you minded, nor cared, since you debated finding Liz’s coat and stealing her car, leaving her in your dust. 

Goddamn Liz. Goddamn Columbia guys. Goddamn you for agreeing to be here.

“So, what do you say we go up to my dorm and have a real party? I’ve got the best rap mix in the whole dorm.” Bucky’s voice pulled you from your thoughts as another boy approached.

“Buck, man,” The boy jerked Bucky around by the shoulder, “Nick’s been looking for you. He says he owes you for blow and he just got some shit himself.”

“You’re kidding. Asshole really scored some of his own?”

“He’s in Nat’s room. Go, man. Party on.”

“Excellent.” Bucky finally turned to you, as if he forgot you were even there, “Y/n, you ever do coke?”

“Ever since writing that DARE essay in fifth grade, I refuse everything.” 

“DARE? Are you sure that shit still works?”

You smacked your forehead lightly. “Oh, geez, right! I wrote that at eleven. Might as well do drugs now since I’m not so stupid!” 

You groaned, pushing through the crowded hallway back to where you and Liz had thrown your coats. 

“Hey, don’t run off, now!” Bucky called out, following behind you closely.

Seventeen is the last year Mom buys the Twinkies. When you make the jump from working at Pizza Hut on the weekends to working thirty years at I.B.M, when you lose something, not innocence - power.

You swung open the door to the room, throwing yourself on the stack of coats on the couch beside the door. Setting your glass of vodka in your lap, you pulled out the matchbook you’d gotten at the 7-11. You struck a match, holding your hand over the flame, bringing it closer and closer until the red light licks your hand, causing you to shriek in pain. You dropped the match into the glass, shocked when it catches fire. Giggling to yourself, you toss the glass out the open window; out of sight, out of mind.

“There you are.” Bucky’s voice has you rolling your eyes as you turn to him. “How’s my little cheerleader? Now I know everyone at your high school isn’t so uptight, come on.” 

His hand was coated in sticky sweat as it touched your tight covered thigh and his breath was hot and warm as his leaned in too close to your face. 

“Hey, I really don’t feel so great.” You argued, shoving him away from you as you shot up off the couch. 

“Let’s do it on the coats.” He grinned, oblivious to your side of the conversation. “It’ll be excellent.”

“You know, I have a little prepared speech I give when my suitor wants more than I’d like to give him. Gee, Blank, I had a nice-”

“Save the speeches for Malcolm X. I just wanna get laid.” Bucky chuckled, cutting off your sentence before you could even get the bulk of it out. 

You yanked your coat out from under him, sending him sliding off the couch and to the floor.

“You don’t deserve my fucking speech.” You huffed, stepping over him and storming out the door.

You slow as you realized you now gained Liz’s attention, along with Steve’s as Bucky emerges from the “coat” room. You can tell by the falling smiles on both Steve’s and Liz’s faces as Bucky spews some words you can’t hear that they are more than pissed at you. You watch, your eyes widening as Liz slides her beer glass on the table beside her, steel-faced as she approaches you. 

“What’s your damage? Bucky says you’re being a real cooze.” Liz snapped.

“Liz, I feel awful, like I’m going to throw up. Can we jam, please?”

“Hell no.”

You couldn’t help it, the sudden clot in your throat was replaced with actual vomit as you leaned against the wall, rendered unable by your sudden fatigue to make it to the bathroom. You leaned over, vomit spilling onto the carpet and splatter hitting Liz’s red heels. Groaning, you charge down the hallway and out the door, determined to make it back to the car as Liz follows close behind. 

Christ, I can’t explain it, but I’m allowed an understanding that my parents and these Columbia University assholes have chosen to ignore. I must stop Liz.

“You stupid cunt!” Liz roared, the trash can fire casting shadows on her face as you shivered in the cool night air. 

“You goddamn bitch!” 

“You were nothing before you met me! You were playing Barbies with Cindy Moon! You were a Brownie, you were a Bluebird, you were a Girl Scout Cookie! I got you into a Columbia University party! What’s my thanks? It’s on the hallway carpet. I got paid in puke!” 

“Like it up, baby. Lick. It. Up.”

“Monday morning, you’re history. I’ll tell everyone about tonight. Transfer to Washington. Transfer to Jefferson. No one at Midtown is going to let you play their reindeer games.”

Cindy Moon was a real friend and I sold her out for a bunch of Swatchdogs and Diet Cokeheads. Killing Liz’d be like offing the Wicked Witch of the West. Or is it East? West! I sound like a fucking psycho. Tomorrow I’ll be kissing her aerobicized ass, but tonight, let me dream of a world without Liz. A world where I am free. 

You couldn’t help but fling your diary across the room, the satisfying thud from it hitting the wall beside your window soothing you as you wallowed in anger. You gasp as you hear a sound at the window, looking up, you tear off your glasses and make eye contact with one Peter Parker. 

“Dreadful etiquette, I apologize.” 

“It’s okay...” You replied breathlessly.

“I saw the croquet set out back, you up for a match?”

Your heart was still racing, however instead of the initial shock, it was now revving up with anxiety as you looked at the boy in your bedroom. Was he even really there? Or was he just an anger fueled hallucination?

“Sure. But I’m blue.”

Dear Diary,

When did my life become reminiscent of a YA novel? When did I come to believe it wasn’t weird that Peter Parker was coming through my window? Did Twilight finally condition me into believing odd behavior was true romance?

“Now I can see why you looked so mangled when I came up.” Peter shook his head, his voice soft. 

You shifted so that your head was on his bare chest, your eyes focused on the pile of his clothes that sat beside him. 

“I’ve always treated Liz’s drama queen plays as bullshit, but I’m honestly really scared. Who am I going to sit with at lunch on Monday?” You groaned, leaning back onto the grass, the blades pricking your bare shoulders. “God, I sound like I’m from Riverdale.” 

“Are girls really that bad?” 

“It’s a dog eat dog world.” You shrugged. “It feels like it’s either kill yourself or get told to kill yourself.”

“Geez.” Peter shook his head. “That was my first game of strip croquet, by the way. I thank you.”

“You’re welcome. It’s a lot more interesting than flinging your clothes off and going at it on a neighbor’s swing set.”

“Well, I don’t know, there’s something to be said for- ouch!” 

You chuckled as the blue mallet that was stuck in the ground fell over and hit the boy. He handed you your panties that fell along with the mallet before sliding on his own underwear. 

“What a night.” You giggled, slipping on your panties as you kissed him softly and stood up. “What a life. I almost moved into high school right out of sixth grade because I was some sort of genius. But of course, my mother was too scared I wouldn’t make friends, so we chucked the idea and blah, blah, blah.”

You searched the yard for your clothes, cursing Peter silently for allowing you to toss them around instead of into a neat pile like he had done. You picked up your shirt and pants, gathering up your socks and slippers before putting them on as you spoke.

“But now blah-blah-blah is all I ever do. I use my grand I.Q. to decide what shade of lip gloss to buy and how to hit three keggers before curfew. Some genius.” 

“Liz Allan is one bitch that deserves to die.” Peter blurted out, making it clear he wasn’t listening to you. 

“Killing her won’t solve anything.”

“A well time lighting bolt on her walk into school on Monday morning, all the other Elizabeths, shit, the whole school, would be cut loose.”

“Well, then, I will pray for rain.” You chuckled. “A flowerpot falling from the window sill would work just as well, more likely to happen too.”

“You see those condoms in the grass? We killed it tonight, Y/n. We killed our baby.” 

“Hey, it was good for me too, imbecile.”

“I’m just saying. It’s not hard to end a life.”

“There’s a big difference between killing the prom queen and busting into a condom.”

You both laugh as Peter finally starts getting dressed. 

“I guess I don’t know what I’m talking about. After all, there’s only one genius here.”

“I know exactly what the hell you’re talking about and you’re right, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Why don’t we just graduate, grow old and be adults, and then die?” 

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

“But before we do that, I want to see Liz Allan spew chunks so we can call it even.”

_____________________

Tagged: @thewinchesterchronicles @spookyanairwin @audreylovespidey706 @asonofpeter​ @halparkebitch​

message me to be added to the taglist!

[purplebass]

Prompt 53 please 🥰🧡

Here it is! I hope it’s good, I tried to give my best 😘💜

Title: If They Only Knew Couple: Jesse Blackthorn and Lucie Herondale, Blackdale Prompt: “That wasn’t very subtle.”

“And then, the princess decided that it was time she took the matter into her own hands,” Lucie typed on her typewriter. “She needed to save the prince from his fate, otherwise he would die by the hands of his evil mother. But what could she do, as he lied, motionless, on the cold marble floor of the castle? She could only-”

“Interesting.”

Lucie jumped and looked up, accidentally clicking some buttons and messing up the sheet of paper inside of her writing machine.

“You scared me,” she said, putting her hand on her chest to stop her racing heart. Lately, her heart always beat faster whenever a certain guy was around her, and this time, it was pounding both because of the anxiety and the excitement. She really liked to see that boy around her, and she wondered if it was the same for him. She sighed.

Jesse appeared at the side of her mahogany desk. “I didn’t think a girl who can see ghosts could be easily scared, to be honest.”

“If you appear out of nowhere, she could be,” Lucie protested, then she tried to fix the typewriter. The paper was stuck in the middle of the machine, which meant she had to use another one and rewrite everything she had written over there.

As she adjusted the typewriter, Jesse gazed at her with amusement. Lucie didn’t know, but he took pleasure in seeing her write and in being so lively.

“I sense you’re angry with me,” Jesse said, but his voice was playful, not bitter.

Lucie pouted, trying to keep her stance, but it wasn’t possible. “I am not the resentful type, Jesse. Even if you creep up on me while I write.”

Jesse raised his once dark eyebrows, and he shrugged. “Now I’m creeping up on you,” he told her as he paced around her room, noticing she had quite a lot of books hidden in there, “but you aren’t angry with me.”

He tilted his head and glanced at her. She was still trying to get the sheet of paper out of the damned machine, but it wouldn’t budge. “Ugh,” Lucie complained. “The paper is stuck.”

As if on cue, Jesse moved swiftly until he was by her side. The paper was torn but it was indeed blocked inside the typewriter, and Lucie wasn’t able to get it out so she could go back to her writing.

She glanced about her room, expecting to see him near her bed, but he wasn’t there. She realized he was near her, a hand placed on her desk and his head bent on the typewriter, inspecting the mess she had just created with the crumbled sheet. Jesse turned towards her, and Lucie couldn’t help but be attracted to his green eyes, which were one of the only features of him who still gave him a semblance of a living person and not a ghost.

Lucie’s mouth fell slightly open as if she was startled by the nearness, but at the same time, in awe at the guy’s appearance. He was handsome, and she thought it was just a pity that he was a ghost. She felt sorry for him. He could have been married by now, had kids, living the shadowhunter life he was meant to live or becoming whatever he wanted to be. But he was dead.

“I wish I could help you,” said Jesse, taking her back to reality, and ironically linking his words with the thoughts she was having on him. “But we never had this thing at Chiswick, and I have no idea how it works.”

She nodded and broke the connection, checking the typewriter again. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered,” Lucie assured him, and tried to get back at it, and in the end the sheet was freed from the typewriter. She looked at it grimly. “Finally. But now I have to type it all again.”

“What were you typing, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I was writing The Beautiful Cordelia,” Lucie beamed, rearranging some papers on the furthest side of the desk. “I was about to say how the princess saved the prince from his evil mother. She was about to…” she said, then left her sentence hanging in the air.

“Interesting. What was she about to do?”

“Are you really interested, Mr. Blackthorn?” Lucie wondered, smiling at him, but not actually answering his question. The only people who seemed interested in her writing were her family and Cordelia, and despite they told her she had talent, she had never showed her work to somebody else. “I mean, I could be writing the next best seller, if you ask me.”

Jesse shrugged and sat on the desk. Even if he was almost a shadow, he didn’t lose his spark. He was not tangible, at least for others, but he still carried a strong presence along his translucent body. “You just called me Mr. Blackthorn,” he laughed. “And I’m sure your story is nice. But, haven’t you just said that your character was about to do something? What was it?”

“I called you Mr. Blackthorn because… never mind,” Lucie shook her head and rose from her chair.

“No, now I want to know, Miss Herondale,” he urged with curiosity.

Lucie, who, in the meantime had walked to the center of the room, stopped her anxious pacing and gazed back at Jesse. He still leaned on the desk, but he turned towards her, his hands folded on his long legs.

“Well, aren’t you older than me? You were born one year before my parents got married. There is an 8-year gap between us. If you weren’t dead, you’d be 24 now, Jesse Blackthorn.”

Lucie said that in one go, without stopping for a second to get air in her lungs. She hoped she hadn’t offended him – after all, he was a ghost. Despite the sadness of his situation, she was stating facts. Jesse was born on the same year as Charles Fairchild, her mother once told her, but the children were as different as night and day, despite they both had forest green eyes. Tatiana Blackthorn, Jesse’s mother, didn’t want her brothers Gideon and Gabriel to see her baby. Her aunt Cecily and uncle Gabriel had been disheartened by her choice, especially her uncle, but they couldn’t do anything.

Jesse seemed to mull over what she said, and he waited to give her answer, to the point that Lucie thought she had been rude. Maybe it wasn’t nice to remind a ghost that he stopped aging? Yes, definitely. She was about to say more when she heard him speak.

“I honestly don’t feel that old. I mean, I feel that time passes, but I don’t perceive it the same way the living do,” he explained, staring at the window in front of him. “So, I don’t think you should call me mister. We are the same age. And I thought…” he started, then sauntered to her, his hands in the pockets of his trousers.

Lucie did not move as he approached. “What did you think, Jesse?”

“We are friends, aren’t we?” he inquired with a placid tone.

“Of course, we are,” she assured him, looking delighted to hear so. “Of course, we are friends.”

Jesse beamed, and his eyes seemed to lit up with something Lucie had seen ever so slightly in him, ever since they had started meeting in secret. Hope, comfort. Warmth. How could a person who had been dead for seven long years, exude such glow?

“Marvelous,” he commented, then went to sit on her bed. “Since we’re friends, I expect you to tell me about your problem. About your story, I mean.”

“The problem with my story,” Lucie commenced, “is that I don’t know how to write the scene I was about to write.”

“How so?”

Lucie bit her lip and started pacing her room. “The princess is meant to kiss the prince to save him, since he’s dead,” she said. “Because they are fated and by kissing him, she can revive him”.

She thought how ironic that situation was. She, Lucie Herondale, hadn’t intentionally decided to insert what was happening in her real life into her story. She hadn’t realized it until then, with Jesse sitting on her bed. Jesse was dead, and…

“What is the problem, then?”

“The kiss. The kiss is the problem,” Lucie admitted honestly. She wasn’t shy, but she had to confess that speaking of kisses with a guy her age – he said so, made her cheeks heat. And it didn’t help that they were alone. In her room. At night. She dared to look at him, to see his reaction.

“You’ve never kissed somebody before,” Jesse declared, nonchalant. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it. Pardon me.”

Lucie wasn’t somebody who hid her emotions, and she wouldn’t hide them in front of him. After a minute of deliberation, she decided that honesty, as always, was the best policy. “No, no. I’m not offended. Truly. And… you’re right.”

If Jesse was surprised, he didn’t let it show over his face. His expression remained neutral, tranquil, peaceful. And he was quiet even when he replied her, in contrast with her current mood. She was anxious. Suddenly, her stomach felt empty, as if something was in there. Butterflies?

“With this I can help,” Jesse murmured, grinning. “Or… By the Angel, I’m being too improper tonight, am I? I should just go.”

“No!” Lucie blurted out without thinking, realizing her voice was too loud. “No. Don’t go. I think it would be a nice experiment for me to practice kissing. This way I’ll be able to write it more realistically, even if I doubt Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë had kissed somebody when they wrote their novels,” she answered him, trying not to appear too enthusiastic about it, even if she was indeed super excited for that moment. Not only because of the kiss, her first kiss, but because of him.

Jesse nodded. “Come here, then,” he patted the spot next to him on her bed. “Or you want to do it standing?”

Lucie tried to keep her mind clear. Focus, she needed to focus. How was better? “It’s better on the bed,” she finally decided, “since my prince is supposed to be on the floor, deceased.”

“Then how about we do it like that? I don’t mind being on the floor,” he proposed.

“Excellent,” she agreed. Jesse, as swift as usual, lied down on the Persian rug she had in front of her bed. She then followed him and sat next to his shadowy body. “Close your eyes, Jesse.”

And he did as he was told. Lucie didn’t know what to do exactly, and she tried to wrack her brain and think about one of her favorite novels. How did the heroine kiss the hero at the end?

She put her hands on the sides of his neck, then dove down onto him, closed her eyes, and pressed her lips on Jesse’s translucent ones. At first, it didn’t happen anything. His lips were soft, not warm but delicate. Then she felt his hand on her back, trying not to impose on her body too much, and his lips started moving slowly on hers. He was doing what she usually did whenever she ate her favorite cake, eating small bites, slowly, savoring each piece with delight to make it last longer. He was gentle, not urgent. It seemed endless, relaxing even, until she heard the door open behind her and she felt as if she was free falling from a cliff. Which was not far from the truth.

She luckily fell on the Persian rug.

“Did you scream earlier, Lu?” her father asked, getting into her room. “And why are you on the floor? Perhaps you fell?” Will wondered, and she could read worry written on his face as he knelt down and touched her head.

“No, papa. I was just mad because a piece of paper stuck in the typewriter, that is all,” she explained, hoping she didn’t have I’ve just been kissed by a ghost written all over her face.

Will glanced at the desk, then at his daughter. “Do you want any help?”

“No, thanks, papa.”

He seemed satisfied of the answer and stood up, offering his hand to her, which she accepted. She hoped that her hand didn’t give her away. It was sweaty.

“But you didn’t tell me why you were on the rug,” he said.

Lucie loved her father, but sometimes he was too… too curious like a cat. Or a child. While this amused her, she didn’t intend to reveal to him that she was alone in her room with a handsome Blackthorn, so she opted for a white lie, which wasn’t completely a lie.

“I was trying a scene for my book. The character faints, so I wanted to describe it well.”

Will nodded, grinning. “Ah, alright, I see, sweet Lu. Be careful.”

“I will, pap,” she agreed as he walked out of her room. “Oh, dad? Can you knock next time?”

“I knocked, Lucie. Three or four times. The fifth time I decided to barge in.”

Lucie was stunned. “Ok, well, then… goodnight, papa. Say goodnight to mom too.”

“Yes, my dear. See you tomorrow,” he said, then closed the door behind him, leaving her alone once again.

She sat on the bed with her hand on her heart and sighed.

“That wasn’t very subtle,” Jesse said, appearing in her room out of the blue for the second time that night. But he wasn’t sitting on her bed with her.

“It was indeed very close,” Lucie agreed, gazing at Jesse. He had a smug face, and he was laughing. “Are you pleased with yourself, Jesse Blackthorn?”

“A person like me rarely lives situations like this anymore,” he confessed. “Let’s be thankful I was a ghost, or your father would have thrown me out of the window.”

“My father? No, I don’t think he would have,” she replied with determination. “But my brother, maybe… and the other Merry Thieves…”

“Who are the Merry Thieves?”

“My other brothers,” Lucie conceded. “I’m the only one who can see you besides your family.”

Jesse nodded, but didn’t answer. She thought he probably didn’t know why she was the only one who could see him besides for Grace and Tatiana, and she hoped to find that out soon.

“Lucie,” he murmured after they stayed in silence for a couple of minutes. “Was the experiment alright? Did you get what you were looking for?”

“It was perfect,” she said, scanning his face to read his expression. He wore his quiet expression like a glove. She wondered if he also felt the same things she did, but didn’t dare to ask him. After all, hadn’t he said he was helping her for her writing research?

“I’m glad.”

“Thanks for the help, Jesse.”

“Anytime, Lucie.”

Lucie smiled at him and then went back to her chair, behind the desk. Now she had to write. “It’s better if I write the scene while it’s still fresh in my mind.”

“I agree,” he answered, approaching het desk with his silent gait. She was loading another sheet of paper in the typewriter when he spoke again. “Lucie?”

She glanced at him, expectantly. “Yes?”

“Can I stay? I mean, I’d love to see you write, if you don’t mind.”

Lucie couldn’t help but smile. Not only she liked the idea, but she also felt a sweet tinge in his voice, as if he was shy to ask her that. “You don’t even have to ask. You can stay anytime.”

“Alright. I’ll be quiet,” Jesse said, and Lucie wondered if he did know how true that statement was about him, but at the same time very wrong. Because despite Jesse was a ghost, a reserved ghost, he also managed to scream something very clear whenever she looked at him.

Jesse wanted to live.

Lucie didn’t know what she could do to help him. For now, she would just reenact their kiss in her writing, pretending for a moment to be The Beautiful Cordelia of her story, the princess kissed by the prince tortured by his evil mother until she could, hopefully, do it for real and for the whole world to see.

[temsikghosts]

Ghost Swap

treat for my dear friend @playghosttrick !!! @fyeahghosttrick

Prompt: Yomiel gets dragged to the beach with Fiansissel and he hates the ocean SO MUCH. Can be funny or depressing or both!

I wrote something based on one of my old ideas and I hope you like it!

Ugh… How did I get into this mess?

“Yomiel! Honey, talk to me!” I could hear Sissel’s worried voice from somewhere. I felt someone shake my body a bit.

“Sissel, don’t shake him like that! Let me check on him. Yomiel, can you hear me?” It was a grave, male voice this time. Was it Jowd? 

I couldn’t remember anything and this somehow made me feel even worse. “Ughn….” Was the only thing I could manage to let out.

“Look, he’s waking up!” It was Sissel’s voice again and as I tried to open my eyes, I could see her hovering over me. Or barely could see her, because my vision was still trying to adapt to the bright light of the environment.

“W-What… what happened?” I blurted out. My head was spinning and as I tried to properly wake up, I could feel I was lying down in some sort of fabric. The light was just too bright to get used to and my already sensitive eyes were having a lot of difficulty to try processing what was going on and I suddenly realized I was without my sunglasses for some reason, so instead of relying on my weak eyes, I searched the ground to feel where in the world I was when I felt sand beneath my fingers.

“You passed out, honey. Oh my gods, I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have—” Sissel was cut short by the male voice again.

“It’s okay, Sissel, it wasn’t your fault.” Then I felt a large hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t properly see in this bright sunlight, but I knew who it was. It was Jowd. “You’re okay there, Yomiel?”

“Yeah, just… I need my sunglasses, please. It’s so hard to see anything in this fucking strong sunlight.” I said tiredly as I finally managed to sit down. Then the memories just came rushing back to me.

----

It’s crazy to think about how time flies. It seemed like it was just yesterday that I was released from prison, but that had been a year ago. Sissel and I got married recently and we were just back from our honeymoon when Jowd and Alma asked us for a family trip to celebrate as a family. A family. That was a weird word to me. My family life was so messed up that for years I’ve been wishing for my ideal definition of family. And now, looking at Jowd, Alma, Kamila, Sissel (and I mean both)... Despite the awkwardness and guilt I still feel towards them about the things I’ve done to them in the past, I can’t help to shake the feeling that I’m in the right place. Is this what it feels like to be in a family?

So yeah, we agreed to it. Sissel had been all excited about it, of course, while I’ve been really nervous. I didn’t know what to expect from this trip and I hoped things would turn out alright. What got me worried though, was actually where we were going to spend this vacation. 

We were going to spend a weekend at Jowd’s beachside home.

I had to admit I wasn’t really fond of the idea of getting too close to the ocean again, but I guess as long as I stayed on firm land, I would be okay. I knew it wasn’t Jowd’s idea either, he didn’t seem too fond of the ocean too after the whole submarine incident. But we couldn’t say no to our women, could we?

So there we were, hosted in Jowd and Alma’s beachside house. There was an entire room for me and Sissel and I still remember Jowd’s rule about using the bedroom.

“Yomiel, Sissel, I know you two just came back from a heated honeymoon, but please, no doing anything improper while Kamila is around. This is a family vacation.”

“Geez, we’re not that vulgar, Jowd!” I rolled my eyes, but Sissel let out an embarrassed giggle. It’s true that Sissel and I got… a little busy during our honeymoon, but I knew it wouldn’t be polite of us to do this kinda stuff in someone else’s house. 

In the afternoon, we packed our stuff and went to the beach. Kamila was busy building sand castles with cat Sissel (yes, of course she brought the cat with her. And honestly, I was glad to have my best friend with me on this trip too.) Lynne had come too (it was like she was already part of Jowd’s family) and she would play around with Kamila and cat Sissel and Missile. Good thing pets were allowed on this beach. 

I, of course, was standing FAR AWAY from the ocean, under the beach umbrella, safe from the burning sun and working with my laptop. Of course I would bring my laptop for the trip. There were some projects I could work on while everyone else was having fun. Besides, I would stay safe and far away from the sea, as it should be. But of course, sometimes I would lift my eyes from the computer screen to stare at Sissel. Gods, she looked so wonderful in a bikini. At least one good thing came out of being in this hellish place. The way her skin looked so beautiful under the sun, not to mention the tiny drops of sweat that made her skin sparkle under the sunlight, making her look even more desirable… Damn. I found myself licking my lips in lust and, for a moment, I mentally cursed Jowd for his stupid rule about me and Sissel “not doing anything improper while we’re hosted in his house.” So, to take my mind out of my “improper thoughts”, I tried to focus back on my coding. But just as I came back to writing...

“Seriously, Yomiel? You’re working while we’re on vacation? Who even brings a laptop to the beach?” I heard Sissel complaining. Sigh. Just when I was trying to concentrate on the code...

“Sissy, love, you know I’m not fond of beaches.” I protested quietly, but she didn’t seem ready to give up.

“No, no, no. Turn this off, I want you to come swim with me!” She literally took the laptop from my hands and put it on the table.

“SWIM? Babe, you know I can’t swim!” I started to panic as she pulled me from the chair and started dragging me towards the sea.

“We’re not going too far, I swear! We’re only going where the water hits on our knees. Besides, you’ll be with me and I CAN swim, so I can save you if anything goes wrong!” She winked at me, but I couldn’t shake this dreadful feeling out of me. The closer she dragged me to the ocean, the closer I was to panicking.

“Sissel, PLEASE, no! I-I-I don’t like the sea! I-It’s too d-d-dangerous, e-e-even for those who can swim! L-Let’s go back, please!” I tried to convince her one last time.

“Please, Yommy! Just this once! Do it for me, please…” She looked at me with her ‘kitten eyes’ face. The one she always used whenever she wanted to convince me of something. I could never say no to that face. But the ocean….

I looked over at Jowd, who was helping Kamila with the sand castle. I tried to ask him for help, but Sissel managed to push me closer towards the water and I could already feel it under my feet.

The cold sensation of the water under my feet, along with the furious roar of the waves got me thinking back of that dark, sinking submarine and how I was supposed to be left there with the debris, forgotten, like a complete, lost soul. 

The memories of that night came rushing to me all at once and I could feel as if I was trapped in that submarine again, sinking slowly towards the bottom of an endless sea.

Then the world seemed to disappear around me.

---

Back to the present, as I woke up I could still feel myself shaking in fear. Sissel was feeling terrible about it and she was apologizing all the time for trying to force me to get into the water with her. She had brought me my sunglasses and a coconut so I could drink some of its water. It helped me to feel a bit better for a second.

“You sure you’re okay, Yomiel?” Jowd asked again. Even Kamila, Lynne and Alma were standing nearby and everyone seemed worried about me.

“I… guess….” The real answer was ‘no, I’m not’, but I didn’t want to make Sissel feel worse. But I guess Jowd understood the real meaning of my words. He already knew how much I hated the idea of standing close to the ocean when in the other timeline, I was supposed to be left alone in that sinking submarine.

(It’s okay, Yomiel, you’re safe now.) cat Sissel’s voice echoed in my mind. The black kitten was now sitting on my lap, staring at me intently with his big amber eyes. (Though I understand why you freaked out. Water is the worst.)

(Do you want to come back to the house with your wife? I can stay here with Kamila, Alma and Lynne. And.. huh… You two can have a time for yourselves, if this will help you get your mind of what happened.) Jowd’s voice echoed through our Ghost World connection.

(What? But you said…)

(I said ‘no doing anything improper while Kamila’s around’. But we’ll be here on the beach so you two can have the house for yourselves for a while.) He winked playfully. Gods, I couldn’t believe he was really willing to pass over his own rule for my sake.

(And we can talk about the ocean incident later.) The cat said. (That is, if you want to, of course.)

(Thank you, guys.) I sighed in relief, smiling at my two friends. As awkward my friendship with Jowd felt at first, I came to realize he was like a big brother watching over me at times 

“Sissel, he’s doing better now!” I heard Jowd shout to her. She was buying another coconut for me and came back to my side as soon as she heard Jowd’s voice.

“Really? Oh, thank goodness! I’m so, so sorry, Yommy…. I didn’t know your fear of water was that big.” She hugged me and it was a relief to feel her warm body pressed against me.

“Why don’t you two go back to the house and take some rest? I can stay here with the girls, don’t worry.” He winked at us one more time. It seemed like Sissel took the hint as well because she cast a lustful glance towards me, then nodded.

“Of course! This will help us a lot. Thank you so much, Jowd!” She giggled, then winked at me. “It will be a good way to apologize for my mistake.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle back. “You’re already forgiven, my love. And thanks once more, Jowd.”

“You’re welcome.” The detective said while he held the black kitten in his arms and watched as Sissel and I packed our things and headed back home. Sissel’s arms wrapped around mine as we walked back to Jowd and Alma’s beach house.

Ok, so maybe a family vacation wasn’t so bad, after all.

[ariellblogus]

TL;DR: Read logs, delete useless shit, maintain the DB clear.

* Warning: An extended learn! *

Oh properly, I feel like a n00b while typing this but that’s how things roll. I’m not positive if I’ve any regular readers left, as to have regular readers one must be a daily writer, which I am clearly not. (Yes, I wish to change.)

Still, when you go back and stalk this blog, you’ll notice that submit frequency for 2018 has been abysmal at it’s greatest. But yes, there’s a cause an fascinating story behind the same. A narrative which might train you a thing or two about hosting WordPress by yourself internet hosting. It has definitely taught me a lot.

So, it began back in January once I began noticing poor loading performance of the location. Being a self-shared hosted occasion, I chalked it up to poor bandwidth or dangerous optimisation by Staff GoDaddy (not a lot constructive about them). Soon I started getting 503 error randomly on the home page, so it was time to research stuff…

Preliminary findings

I logged into GoDaddy account and went into my hosting status page. Immediately I used to be greeted with an orange banner(hyperlink right here) stating I’m reaching the resource limit and I have to improve my internet hosting plan soon to maintain up the graceful operations. I scoffed mildly to their advertising techniques and opened the boot to look underneath the hood.

I opened the CPanel and took a look over on the system panel on the left. To my amazement, virtually all of the parameters have been either terminal pink or warning orange. I appeared up the labels to know the which means of these indicators.

Pink is often my favorite color

Nicely, clearly, I used to be a bit stunned as I have an expertise of operating WordPress since 2006-ish and I have had run pretty complexly themed blogs on my potato local pc (2006 PC, yeah!) utilizing XAMMP on Home windows.

In case you are a backend guy and skim this line above now (in 2018), you will in all probability cringe more durable than you do on Nicki Minaz songs. Every little thing about that line is WRONG (2006, PC, XAMMP).

Anyway, I had a fond memory of WordPress stack being tremendous environment friendly and respectable at dealing with a mere 100+ blog posts with ~15 plugins. Especially once I was not even posting posts commonly and visitors was on a decline.

Something was improper right here.

I referred to as up GoDaddy tech gross sales help and patiently explained my drawback to him only to get his sales pitch – “Sar, I can see the upgrade banner in your account, so can you. Please give cash, we offer you moar resourcez. Oaky?“. Hmm, in all probability not that brash however you get the gist. I (mildly irritated) requested him to escalate my name to his supervisor or someone from *real* tech help.

Properly, they kinda did. A woman (I am NOT a sexist) picked up the decision and I swear to the odin that she was not capable of perceive something about wp-config and the 503 error and requested me if I have cleared my browser cache. I politely requested her to switch the decision to her supervisor.

…

This time a moderately mature sounding guy picked up the decision and ask my drawback. People, I used to be already 3 ranges deep and 20 minutes on the call. I still defined to him my drawback. He opened his admin console, obtained to my box and disabled all plugins (essential) and my custom theme.

The location seemed to breathe for some time and we have been capable of access the same. He informed me plainly that this can be a basic case of resource overutilization and I have to upgrade my hosting from the essential starter plan to at the least their Delux combo something plan. I made the rookie’s mistake of asking the fee for the same as he immediately stated he will simply transfer my name to his gross sales representative. *facepalm* I held up the connection earlier than they might plug me one other degree deep.

I deep down knew that I want to research this myself earlier than throwing moolah on the desk.

Lazy boi excuses; Half – I

This was February 2018. I stored my weekend free and planned to drill down into my GoDaddy shared internet hosting server to seek out the resource drawback. I used to be positive about some bug leaking memory or some infinite loop sucking out my CPU burst cycles. I deliberate to duplicate the setup on AWS t2.micro free occasion and made an account on the same. It does require a credit card on the file before letting to fireside up ec2 situations. My AMEX CC had some drawback because it debits the verification money however nonetheless stated pending for 48 hours. Truthful enough, I assumed I’ll begin in 2 days…

But all of a sudden (a software program engineer approach of shedding joyful tears!), I acquired a huge venture to work on from scratch at my last job @ Shuttl. (Yeah, I have switched career, yet once more). The venture identify rhymed with XMS. I was pretty excited to build a Python Django venture from scratch along with my 2 gifted senior teammates. I used to be completely satisfied that I will get to study a ton and can deploy an entire challenge reside AND……both of my 2 gifted senior teammates left earlier than even the completion of the primary milestone of the undertaking. Yep, just left. And I used to be struck with lots of legacy code to work on, with a little or no concept concerning the framework. I had a great experience with Flask framework but Django had some things carried out in another way.

I slogged at work and the great half was that I was capable of understand most of the code and received fairly good at Django,  carried out a ton of APIs and built a primary dashboard UI.  Anyway, that sucked subsequent 2 months of my life and I utterly forgot about this blog, the 503 challenge and meanwhile it stored getting worse as it began opening sometimes and stored throwing 503 errors for probably the most part.

Lazy boi excuses; Part – II

Nah, let’s transfer forward. I’ve shared too much personal stuff anyway. 😛

Let’s start recent? Scrap all shit.

It was around Might 2018  and I obtained some interns and a junior to assist me with new tasks that our product group was pumping out PRDs out at a tremendous price. I used to be working continuous on similar however still a window of private time opened up. Meanwhile, we migrated our code repositories to Github from Gitlab and I obtained to know concerning the idea of gh-pages.

Github pages – A neat nifty venture by Github which allows you to host stuff from your repo as easy websites or blogs. Free of charge!

This appeared like a candy chime to my ears as I used to be drained of the non-existent help from GoDaddy and their incompetent tech staff (free-tier a minimum of). I began formulating a plan to nuke bitsnapper altogether and start from scratch and make a easy Martin Fowler-esque blog.

Clear, simple and nerdy.

So, I created a simple website blog on jatinkrmalik.github.io and even posted some posts (perhaps 1). However because of lack of a lot formatting options and skill to customize stuff, was a bummer.

I lost curiosity in Github pages quicker than America did in Trump.

AND soon I resigned from Shuttl and left in July as a result of [redacted] causes.

A new beginning, AWS method?!

In late July, I joined a really early stage startup referred to as Synaptic.io after what felt like a swyamwar of supply letters. (okay, no bragging). I used to be impressed by the product and measurement of the staff which you possibly can rely on one hand. It felt profitable to get into core group, build one thing great and have an opportunity to witness progress from the within.

Anyway, Synaptic being a data-heavy company, we use lots of third social gathering providers and instruments for automated deployment to staging, prod and so on. Naturally, AWS is the spine of our deployment infra. I acquired a brand new AWS account each for staging and prod, so I started reading about the identical and obtained to find out about Bitnami WordPress AMI which comes preloaded with the WordPress stack goodies and one can deploy with a click on. It was time to reactivate my AWS account and hearth this up.

A couple of weeks in the past.

Initially of August 2018, I was lastly capable of authenticate my AWS account by punching a new credit card. I fired up a bitnami WordPress occasion and did a setup for the standard WordPress installation. Now all I had to do was simply again up stuff from GoDaddy servers and restore right here.

Sounds straightforward proper?

EXCEPT.

IT.

WAS.

NOT.

I logged into my good previous CPanel, received the FTP creds, loaded FileZilla and began the switch. The ETA was in the north of double-digit hours as the website’s public_html folder was somewhere round 1.5 GB which is comprehensible as I’ve lots of media information and videos. Truthful enough. However this once more was going to take rather a lot of time as the problem with transferring a folder is that every micro-size file (<100 kb) takes mere milliseconds to obtain however takes it’s personal sweet time to write down on the local disk when downloading from the web. The apparent means was to pack the public_html folder into a zip file and then switch.

I did an SSH into the box and ran the command zip -rv public_html.zip public_html/ to zip the listing, but one factor which I forgot was that even whereas zipping a listing, I’ll hit the identical drawback of the zip program manually iterating over all of the information (together with microsized one) and can take quite a bit of time to attempt to compress every one. I left it for 20 minutes only to seek out it solely 10% via my all information. Enchancment? Positive but I am not a very patient man.

Why is that this so slow? Oh, wait.

I appeared into the log (because of -v…verbose), and came upon that I had quite a bit of information in my public_html folder in my xcloner plugin directory resulting from some failed attempts to take website backup from a plugin. I found more such folders of some plugins which haven’t any lively position in powering up this blog.

Checking the dimensions of information within the plugins directory.

So, I deleted these folders in public_html/wp-content/plugins and tried operating the zip command once more. It was still slow and I gave up in a couple of minutes.

Clear up.Zip them em!

I google about wrapping information in a zipper with out compressing a lot and obtained to study ranges of compression in zip utility which fits from 1-9 with 1 being least compression and 9 being the very best degree of compression whereas it defaults to 6. So, I attempted again this time with butzip -1rv public_html.zip public_html/ quickly realized the iteration over gazzilion information take extra time than compression logic for the CPU.

Simply wrapping.

I learn more and came upon that making a tarball w/o compression is quicker than zip utility, so it was time to attempt that and perhaps let it complete in its own sweet time. So, I fired up the command: tar -caf public.tar public_html and left it operating.

Unsure if it ever completed…

Then I logged into phpMyAdmin (an internet app to handle MySQL occasion) to take a backup of my bitsnapper WordPress DB. I simply clicked on export and the downloaded file was of measurement 48 MBs which was odd as in UI it was displaying a DB measurement of 1.2 GB. I knew SQL backup can compress some knowledge but of this magnitude? WTF. I opened the SQL file in VS code and clearly, the file was incomplete and had some HTML gibberish at the end which on inspection was the HTML for phpMyAdmin. Bizarre?

I attempted exporting the DB as soon as again from the UI and this time the dimensions of the backup.sql file was 256 MBs. I felt this was applicable but my instinct did a proper click on and opened in my editor as soon as again. Certainly enough the file was nonetheless incomplete with that gibberish. Truthful to say, the backup from phpMyAdmin was corrupted.

prime

I did an ssh into my internet hosting box using the creds in my GoDaddy account and tried every little thing from checking the output of system instructions like:prime, ps -ef, free but the box is properly sandboxed by GoDaddy to avoid any unauthorised access. I even tried to do a privilege escalation with intention of gaining extra management over my hosting account and perhaps restart mysqld however all in useless.

pssudo?

I knew about taking direct DB backups from the shell utilizing mysqldump -h -u -p > db_backup.sql so it was time to attempt that. I ran the command and tailed the backup SQL file with tail -f db_backup.sql to look into its content material because it populated. It began exporting DB nicely and as I started feeling badass and went to seize a cup of espresso, the terminal introduced me with the error message:

man mysqldumpFirst try.

I googled about the problem and it had something to do with the max_alllowed_packet variable of MySQL. The one two methods to vary that was either my modifying /and so forth/my.cnf file (which I used to be positive I didn’t have sudo entry to) or run SET GLOBAL max_allowed_packet=1073741824; query within the MySQL console.

Admin? No? Sorry.

Yeah, both of them didn’t work. Obviously. You want respective system admin consumer access for both.

The roadblock was getting stupidly irritating, and I had to get the backup.  I googled more and somebody prompt to cross the max_allowed_packet variable with the mysqldump command as.–max-allowed-packet=1073741824 Tried that too, didn’t work.

With –max_allowed_packet

I was tired and needed to sleep, so I terminated my ec2 occasion and slept.

TODAY.

At present I used to be feeling motivated and deliberate to look into the problem from another angle.

As an alternative of utilizing the WordPress AMI, I made a decision to create the whole setup from scratch. I launched an occasion of ec2 with Amazon Linux AMI. The goal was to know if that is actually GoDaddy messing with me or is it some fault in my database which is leading to the entire shebang.

I used this submit as steerage to arrange every little thing from grounds up.

I logged in once more to my GoDaddy account to be greeted by the orange banner urging me to upgrade. I felt weak and was nearly to click improve and throw some dough to get the straightforward means out. But no, that’s towards the hacker mentality I work with.

So, I opened the CPanel, phpMyAdmin and tried taking a backup again. It again downloaded a 250-something MB file with gibberish at the end. I manually eliminated the last half of the file and uploaded it to my ec2 instance by way of scp and imported it into my distant MySQL occasion.

After importing the public_html information, importing SQL backup and configuring wp-config.php file with DB host and creds, I restarted each httpd (Apache server) and MySQL (DB server) and opened http://ec2-instance-url:80 and to my partial euphoria, it did load up my header and footer for bitsnapper however no posts have been seen.

Hmm… something was missing.

I seemed into the tables on phpMyAdmin and my MySQL server on the ec2 occasion and duh, my wp_xxx_posts table and wp_xxx_postsmeta was lacking. Yeah! So, the problem was that my DB measurement has such giant that Godaddy shared hosting limited bandwidth was not allowing me to take a backup of the whole DB. Clearly, I had to repair this.

I wrote a custom python script to take a backup of the bitsnapper DB table-by-table to avoid hitting the max_allowed_packet limit as observed last week however the identical error mysqldump: Error 2013: Misplaced connection to MySQL server throughout question when dumping table wp_xxx_postmeta  stored popping up.

I started my intense googling session as soon as again and queried alongside the line of  ‘how you can backup DB from GoDaddy shared internet hosting‘ and ‘GoDaddy + shared hosting + mysqldump + error 2013‘ and by some means by a fluke, I landed on the Backup part of my ….drumroll?….. CPanel! *facepalm*

Facepalm second!

It had every thing I was making an attempt to do above with a flick of a click. I ended all my previous efforts and download the complete web site backup which had each public_html folder and DB backup SQL. The whole archive was nonetheless 2.5 GB which was big for a small blog like this.

Anyway, I did a scp to my ec2 instance and tried to exchange the information in /var/www/html with public_html/ and restored mysql backup by way of mysql -u -p < db_backup.sql and this time it labored with out an error. I restarted my mysql and apache http server by service mysql restart; serivce httpd restart; and tried to load http://:80 and presto! the entire website loads up.

The euphoria this time also lasted for a brief burst as within 2-3 reloads the replicated website again began throwing up the same 503 error and my shell session chocked up.

503! Not again.

I fired up a brand new terminal and tried SSHing into the box however the box just turned unresponsive. I went to the AWS admin console to examine my ec2 instance monitoring for the machine parameters and observed an identical sample as with the CPanel (left panel) parameter console.  It was all purple and orange as soon as again.

Clearly, GoDaddy’s internet hosting wasn’t the only wrongdoer.

Real IT help == Self-troubleshooting!

It was then once I decided to shed my worry of peeping into the DB tables because it was a gone trigger anyway and I nonetheless had a partial backup from last yr once I migrated the blog from WordPress managed internet hosting to standard shared internet hosting box.

Boys, it was time to run some queries. The first thing I did was to login to the phpMyAdmin and lookup the tables, schema and properties. I used to be assured that the issue is with the DB measurement and that’s the rationale for slow queries which is chocking up the CPU burst time.

I seemed into tables and located table wp_xxx_postmeta to be around 950 MB in measurement with simply 11000 data. This immediately fired up alarms in my head as I have labored with multi-million row DBs during my stint in Adobe & Shuttl and the table measurement was principally in the vary of few MBs solely. A tough again of the notice calculation said a median measurement of 100 kb per report on this table which was weird because once I seemed up the schema for a similar, it simply was storing 4 data i.e. meta_id, post_id, meta_key, meta_value.

Hey DB, you cray?

It was time to prod this table and understand the info inside it. I fired up a simple query:

SELECT meta_key, rely”text” FROM ‘wp_s4w671g0kp_postmeta’ GROUP by meta_key order by rely”text” desc;

Lo behold, the end result was a bit shocking as till now I used to be considering that this desk may include submit revisions or metadata solely but the query outcome was something like this:

meta_key rely”text” _total_views

1895

_view_ip_list

1892

_jetpack_related_posts_cache

1206

_wp_attached_file

1144

_wp_attachment_metadata

1101

wp-smpro-smush-data

1069

_wp_attachment_image_alt

903

_edit_lock

155

_edit_last

140

_yoast_wpseo_focuskw

118

_yoast_wpseo_linkdex

118

_thumbnail_id

116

_yoast_wpseo_metadesc

114

_publicize_twitter_user

107

_wpas_done_all

103

_total_likes

77

_like_ip_list

77

_wpas_skip_3914702

75

_wpas_skip_11104850

72

_yoast_wpseo_title

56

_wp_attachment_backup_sizes

40

_yoast_wpseo_focuskw_text_input

38

_wp_old_slug

35

essb_hideplusone

29

essb_hidevk

29

Do you see it? There are some 1800+ data for _view_ip_list, _total_views,  _jetpack_related_posts_cache which is principally nothing however data originated from WordPress personal homegrown fashionable plugin – Jetpack. I googled a bit about security delete for these data, didn’t find anything,  took a leap of religion and executed:

Delete from FROM ‘wp_xxx_postmeta’ WHERE meta_key = ‘_view_ip_list’;

Delete from FROM ‘wp_xxx_postmeta’ WHERE meta_key = ‘_total_views’;

Delete from FROM ‘wp_xxx_postmeta’ WHERE meta_key = ‘_jetpack_related_posts_cache’;

It deleted some 4,000 data out of 11,000 data it had and look what happened once I refreshed phpMyAdmin?

All cleaned up!

Yus! My wp_xxx_postmeta table measurement dropped from 900-something MBs to 6.Three MBs by just deleting ~4,000 data. What sick joke is that? My complete DB measurement dropped to 25 MBs from ~1.2 GBs, in all probability because of the cascade effect of overseas key constraints of the data I deleted.

Outcome?

My web site was a breeze once once more. The load time went down considerably, in all probability as a result of of quicker DB queries and even the system monitoring parameters on the CPanel went down from Purple/Orange to Inexperienced. I did some load testing by executing a number of curl requests to my house page by way of terminal, and the server was not breaking any sweat.

Take a look at that RAM usage!  WHAT? Keep in mind once I talked about operating WordPress stack on my 2006 PC with some 128 MB of memory? Yeah!

So fast much wow!

Classes?

Troubleshooting Godaddy is a long-term thing. You’ll be able to either get into the shit and fix it yourself or you can begin throwing money on the display until you escalate to their core tech workforce which I assume might be by no means for shared internet hosting plans. They could have a terrific help for devoted servers though.

AWS is a f##king superb piece of tech. If you understand how to harden servers, by all means, simply drop these legacy internet hosting providers and go on your personal setup. It’s in all probability cheaper, quicker and extra VFM. A easy t2.micro instance will value < ₹700/month. (Perhaps extra, sigh world financial system!).

Typically, being a smartass isn’t good. Most of the occasions, nevertheless, it retains you protected.

All the time examine logs. -_-

The post Back from Dead

[moonlifesims4ccfinds]

TL;DR: Read logs, delete useless shit, maintain the DB clear.

* Warning: An extended learn! *

Oh properly, I feel like a n00b while typing this but that’s how things roll. I’m not positive if I’ve any regular readers left, as to have regular readers one must be a daily writer, which I am clearly not. (Yes, I wish to change.)

Still, when you go back and stalk this blog, you’ll notice that submit frequency for 2018 has been abysmal at it’s greatest. But yes, there’s a cause an fascinating story behind the same. A narrative which might train you a thing or two about hosting WordPress by yourself internet hosting. It has definitely taught me a lot.

So, it began back in January once I began noticing poor loading performance of the location. Being a self-shared hosted occasion, I chalked it up to poor bandwidth or dangerous optimisation by Staff GoDaddy (not a lot constructive about them). Soon I started getting 503 error randomly on the home page, so it was time to research stuff…

Preliminary findings

I logged into GoDaddy account and went into my hosting status page. Immediately I used to be greeted with an orange banner(hyperlink right here) stating I’m reaching the resource limit and I have to improve my internet hosting plan soon to maintain up the graceful operations. I scoffed mildly to their advertising techniques and opened the boot to look underneath the hood.

I opened the CPanel and took a look over on the system panel on the left. To my amazement, virtually all of the parameters have been either terminal pink or warning orange. I appeared up the labels to know the which means of these indicators.

Pink is often my favorite color

Nicely, clearly, I used to be a bit stunned as I have an expertise of operating WordPress since 2006-ish and I have had run pretty complexly themed blogs on my potato local pc (2006 PC, yeah!) utilizing XAMMP on Home windows.

In case you are a backend guy and skim this line above now (in 2018), you will in all probability cringe more durable than you do on Nicki Minaz songs. Every little thing about that line is WRONG (2006, PC, XAMMP).

Anyway, I had a fond memory of WordPress stack being tremendous environment friendly and respectable at dealing with a mere 100+ blog posts with ~15 plugins. Especially once I was not even posting posts commonly and visitors was on a decline.

Something was improper right here.

I referred to as up GoDaddy tech gross sales help and patiently explained my drawback to him only to get his sales pitch – “Sar, I can see the upgrade banner in your account, so can you. Please give cash, we offer you moar resourcez. Oaky?“. Hmm, in all probability not that brash however you get the gist. I (mildly irritated) requested him to escalate my name to his supervisor or someone from *real* tech help.

Properly, they kinda did. A woman (I am NOT a sexist) picked up the decision and I swear to the odin that she was not capable of perceive something about wp-config and the 503 error and requested me if I have cleared my browser cache. I politely requested her to switch the decision to her supervisor.

…

This time a moderately mature sounding guy picked up the decision and ask my drawback. People, I used to be already 3 ranges deep and 20 minutes on the call. I still defined to him my drawback. He opened his admin console, obtained to my box and disabled all plugins (essential) and my custom theme.

The location seemed to breathe for some time and we have been capable of access the same. He informed me plainly that this can be a basic case of resource overutilization and I have to upgrade my hosting from the essential starter plan to at the least their Delux combo something plan. I made the rookie’s mistake of asking the fee for the same as he immediately stated he will simply transfer my name to his gross sales representative. *facepalm* I held up the connection earlier than they might plug me one other degree deep.

I deep down knew that I want to research this myself earlier than throwing moolah on the desk.

Lazy boi excuses; Half – I

This was February 2018. I stored my weekend free and planned to drill down into my GoDaddy shared internet hosting server to seek out the resource drawback. I used to be positive about some bug leaking memory or some infinite loop sucking out my CPU burst cycles. I deliberate to duplicate the setup on AWS t2.micro free occasion and made an account on the same. It does require a credit card on the file before letting to fireside up ec2 situations. My AMEX CC had some drawback because it debits the verification money however nonetheless stated pending for 48 hours. Truthful enough, I assumed I’ll begin in 2 days…

But all of a sudden (a software program engineer approach of shedding joyful tears!), I acquired a huge venture to work on from scratch at my last job @ Shuttl. (Yeah, I have switched career, yet once more). The venture identify rhymed with XMS. I was pretty excited to build a Python Django venture from scratch along with my 2 gifted senior teammates. I used to be completely satisfied that I will get to study a ton and can deploy an entire challenge reside AND……both of my 2 gifted senior teammates left earlier than even the completion of the primary milestone of the undertaking. Yep, just left. And I used to be struck with lots of legacy code to work on, with a little or no concept concerning the framework. I had a great experience with Flask framework but Django had some things carried out in another way.

I slogged at work and the great half was that I was capable of understand most of the code and received fairly good at Django,  carried out a ton of APIs and built a primary dashboard UI.  Anyway, that sucked subsequent 2 months of my life and I utterly forgot about this blog, the 503 challenge and meanwhile it stored getting worse as it began opening sometimes and stored throwing 503 errors for probably the most part.

Lazy boi excuses; Part – II

Nah, let’s transfer forward. I’ve shared too much personal stuff anyway. 😛

Let’s start recent? Scrap all shit.

It was around Might 2018  and I obtained some interns and a junior to assist me with new tasks that our product group was pumping out PRDs out at a tremendous price. I used to be working continuous on similar however still a window of private time opened up. Meanwhile, we migrated our code repositories to Github from Gitlab and I obtained to know concerning the idea of gh-pages.

Github pages – A neat nifty venture by Github which allows you to host stuff from your repo as easy websites or blogs. Free of charge!

This appeared like a candy chime to my ears as I used to be drained of the non-existent help from GoDaddy and their incompetent tech staff (free-tier a minimum of). I began formulating a plan to nuke bitsnapper altogether and start from scratch and make a easy Martin Fowler-esque blog.

Clear, simple and nerdy.

So, I created a simple website blog on jatinkrmalik.github.io and even posted some posts (perhaps 1). However because of lack of a lot formatting options and skill to customize stuff, was a bummer.

I lost curiosity in Github pages quicker than America did in Trump.

AND soon I resigned from Shuttl and left in July as a result of [redacted] causes.

A new beginning, AWS method?!

In late July, I joined a really early stage startup referred to as Synaptic.io after what felt like a swyamwar of supply letters. (okay, no bragging). I used to be impressed by the product and measurement of the staff which you possibly can rely on one hand. It felt profitable to get into core group, build one thing great and have an opportunity to witness progress from the within.

Anyway, Synaptic being a data-heavy company, we use lots of third social gathering providers and instruments for automated deployment to staging, prod and so on. Naturally, AWS is the spine of our deployment infra. I acquired a brand new AWS account each for staging and prod, so I started reading about the identical and obtained to find out about Bitnami WordPress AMI which comes preloaded with the WordPress stack goodies and one can deploy with a click on. It was time to reactivate my AWS account and hearth this up.

A couple of weeks in the past.

Initially of August 2018, I was lastly capable of authenticate my AWS account by punching a new credit card. I fired up a bitnami WordPress occasion and did a setup for the standard WordPress installation. Now all I had to do was simply again up stuff from GoDaddy servers and restore right here.

Sounds straightforward proper?

EXCEPT.

IT.

WAS.

NOT.

I logged into my good previous CPanel, received the FTP creds, loaded FileZilla and began the switch. The ETA was in the north of double-digit hours as the website’s public_html folder was somewhere round 1.5 GB which is comprehensible as I’ve lots of media information and videos. Truthful enough. However this once more was going to take rather a lot of time as the problem with transferring a folder is that every micro-size file (<100 kb) takes mere milliseconds to obtain however takes it’s personal sweet time to write down on the local disk when downloading from the web. The apparent means was to pack the public_html folder into a zip file and then switch.

I did an SSH into the box and ran the command zip -rv public_html.zip public_html/ to zip the listing, but one factor which I forgot was that even whereas zipping a listing, I’ll hit the identical drawback of the zip program manually iterating over all of the information (together with microsized one) and can take quite a bit of time to attempt to compress every one. I left it for 20 minutes only to seek out it solely 10% via my all information. Enchancment? Positive but I am not a very patient man.

Why is that this so slow? Oh, wait.

I appeared into the log (because of -v…verbose), and came upon that I had quite a bit of information in my public_html folder in my xcloner plugin directory resulting from some failed attempts to take website backup from a plugin. I found more such folders of some plugins which haven’t any lively position in powering up this blog.

Checking the dimensions of information within the plugins directory.

So, I deleted these folders in public_html/wp-content/plugins and tried operating the zip command once more. It was still slow and I gave up in a couple of minutes.

Clear up.Zip them em!

I google about wrapping information in a zipper with out compressing a lot and obtained to study ranges of compression in zip utility which fits from 1-9 with 1 being least compression and 9 being the very best degree of compression whereas it defaults to 6. So, I attempted again this time with butzip -1rv public_html.zip public_html/ quickly realized the iteration over gazzilion information take extra time than compression logic for the CPU.

Simply wrapping.

I learn more and came upon that making a tarball w/o compression is quicker than zip utility, so it was time to attempt that and perhaps let it complete in its own sweet time. So, I fired up the command: tar -caf public.tar public_html and left it operating.

Unsure if it ever completed…

Then I logged into phpMyAdmin (an internet app to handle MySQL occasion) to take a backup of my bitsnapper WordPress DB. I simply clicked on export and the downloaded file was of measurement 48 MBs which was odd as in UI it was displaying a DB measurement of 1.2 GB. I knew SQL backup can compress some knowledge but of this magnitude? WTF. I opened the SQL file in VS code and clearly, the file was incomplete and had some HTML gibberish at the end which on inspection was the HTML for phpMyAdmin. Bizarre?

I attempted exporting the DB as soon as again from the UI and this time the dimensions of the backup.sql file was 256 MBs. I felt this was applicable but my instinct did a proper click on and opened in my editor as soon as again. Certainly enough the file was nonetheless incomplete with that gibberish. Truthful to say, the backup from phpMyAdmin was corrupted.

prime

I did an ssh into my internet hosting box using the creds in my GoDaddy account and tried every little thing from checking the output of system instructions like:prime, ps -ef, free but the box is properly sandboxed by GoDaddy to avoid any unauthorised access. I even tried to do a privilege escalation with intention of gaining extra management over my hosting account and perhaps restart mysqld however all in useless.

pssudo?

I knew about taking direct DB backups from the shell utilizing mysqldump -h -u -p > db_backup.sql so it was time to attempt that. I ran the command and tailed the backup SQL file with tail -f db_backup.sql to look into its content material because it populated. It began exporting DB nicely and as I started feeling badass and went to seize a cup of espresso, the terminal introduced me with the error message:

man mysqldumpFirst try.

I googled about the problem and it had something to do with the max_alllowed_packet variable of MySQL. The one two methods to vary that was either my modifying /and so forth/my.cnf file (which I used to be positive I didn’t have sudo entry to) or run SET GLOBAL max_allowed_packet=1073741824; query within the MySQL console.

Admin? No? Sorry.

Yeah, both of them didn’t work. Obviously. You want respective system admin consumer access for both.

The roadblock was getting stupidly irritating, and I had to get the backup.  I googled more and somebody prompt to cross the max_allowed_packet variable with the mysqldump command as.–max-allowed-packet=1073741824 Tried that too, didn’t work.

With –max_allowed_packet

I was tired and needed to sleep, so I terminated my ec2 occasion and slept.

TODAY.

At present I used to be feeling motivated and deliberate to look into the problem from another angle.

As an alternative of utilizing the WordPress AMI, I made a decision to create the whole setup from scratch. I launched an occasion of ec2 with Amazon Linux AMI. The goal was to know if that is actually GoDaddy messing with me or is it some fault in my database which is leading to the entire shebang.

I used this submit as steerage to arrange every little thing from grounds up.

I logged in once more to my GoDaddy account to be greeted by the orange banner urging me to upgrade. I felt weak and was nearly to click improve and throw some dough to get the straightforward means out. But no, that’s towards the hacker mentality I work with.

So, I opened the CPanel, phpMyAdmin and tried taking a backup again. It again downloaded a 250-something MB file with gibberish at the end. I manually eliminated the last half of the file and uploaded it to my ec2 instance by way of scp and imported it into my distant MySQL occasion.

After importing the public_html information, importing SQL backup and configuring wp-config.php file with DB host and creds, I restarted each httpd (Apache server) and MySQL (DB server) and opened http://ec2-instance-url:80 and to my partial euphoria, it did load up my header and footer for bitsnapper however no posts have been seen.

Hmm… something was missing.

I seemed into the tables on phpMyAdmin and my MySQL server on the ec2 occasion and duh, my wp_xxx_posts table and wp_xxx_postsmeta was lacking. Yeah! So, the problem was that my DB measurement has such giant that Godaddy shared hosting limited bandwidth was not allowing me to take a backup of the whole DB. Clearly, I had to repair this.

I wrote a custom python script to take a backup of the bitsnapper DB table-by-table to avoid hitting the max_allowed_packet limit as observed last week however the identical error mysqldump: Error 2013: Misplaced connection to MySQL server throughout question when dumping table wp_xxx_postmeta  stored popping up.

I started my intense googling session as soon as again and queried alongside the line of  ‘how you can backup DB from GoDaddy shared internet hosting‘ and ‘GoDaddy + shared hosting + mysqldump + error 2013‘ and by some means by a fluke, I landed on the Backup part of my ….drumroll?….. CPanel! *facepalm*

Facepalm second!

It had every thing I was making an attempt to do above with a flick of a click. I ended all my previous efforts and download the complete web site backup which had each public_html folder and DB backup SQL. The whole archive was nonetheless 2.5 GB which was big for a small blog like this.

Anyway, I did a scp to my ec2 instance and tried to exchange the information in /var/www/html with public_html/ and restored mysql backup by way of mysql -u -p < db_backup.sql and this time it labored with out an error. I restarted my mysql and apache http server by service mysql restart; serivce httpd restart; and tried to load http://:80 and presto! the entire website loads up.

The euphoria this time also lasted for a brief burst as within 2-3 reloads the replicated website again began throwing up the same 503 error and my shell session chocked up.

503! Not again.

I fired up a brand new terminal and tried SSHing into the box however the box just turned unresponsive. I went to the AWS admin console to examine my ec2 instance monitoring for the machine parameters and observed an identical sample as with the CPanel (left panel) parameter console.  It was all purple and orange as soon as again.

Clearly, GoDaddy’s internet hosting wasn’t the only wrongdoer.

Real IT help == Self-troubleshooting!

It was then once I decided to shed my worry of peeping into the DB tables because it was a gone trigger anyway and I nonetheless had a partial backup from last yr once I migrated the blog from WordPress managed internet hosting to standard shared internet hosting box.

Boys, it was time to run some queries. The first thing I did was to login to the phpMyAdmin and lookup the tables, schema and properties. I used to be assured that the issue is with the DB measurement and that’s the rationale for slow queries which is chocking up the CPU burst time.

I seemed into tables and located table wp_xxx_postmeta to be around 950 MB in measurement with simply 11000 data. This immediately fired up alarms in my head as I have labored with multi-million row DBs during my stint in Adobe & Shuttl and the table measurement was principally in the vary of few MBs solely. A tough again of the notice calculation said a median measurement of 100 kb per report on this table which was weird because once I seemed up the schema for a similar, it simply was storing 4 data i.e. meta_id, post_id, meta_key, meta_value.

Hey DB, you cray?

It was time to prod this table and understand the info inside it. I fired up a simple query:

SELECT meta_key, rely”text” FROM ‘wp_s4w671g0kp_postmeta’ GROUP by meta_key order by rely”text” desc;

Lo behold, the end result was a bit shocking as till now I used to be considering that this desk may include submit revisions or metadata solely but the query outcome was something like this:

meta_key rely”text” _total_views

1895

_view_ip_list

1892

_jetpack_related_posts_cache

1206

_wp_attached_file

1144

_wp_attachment_metadata

1101

wp-smpro-smush-data

1069

_wp_attachment_image_alt

903

_edit_lock

155

_edit_last

140

_yoast_wpseo_focuskw

118

_yoast_wpseo_linkdex

118

_thumbnail_id

116

_yoast_wpseo_metadesc

114

_publicize_twitter_user

107

_wpas_done_all

103

_total_likes

77

_like_ip_list

77

_wpas_skip_3914702

75

_wpas_skip_11104850

72

_yoast_wpseo_title

56

_wp_attachment_backup_sizes

40

_yoast_wpseo_focuskw_text_input

38

_wp_old_slug

35

essb_hideplusone

29

essb_hidevk

29

Do you see it? There are some 1800+ data for _view_ip_list, _total_views,  _jetpack_related_posts_cache which is principally nothing however data originated from WordPress personal homegrown fashionable plugin – Jetpack. I googled a bit about security delete for these data, didn’t find anything,  took a leap of religion and executed:

Delete from FROM ‘wp_xxx_postmeta’ WHERE meta_key = ‘_view_ip_list’;

Delete from FROM ‘wp_xxx_postmeta’ WHERE meta_key = ‘_total_views’;

Delete from FROM ‘wp_xxx_postmeta’ WHERE meta_key = ‘_jetpack_related_posts_cache’;

It deleted some 4,000 data out of 11,000 data it had and look what happened once I refreshed phpMyAdmin?

All cleaned up!

Yus! My wp_xxx_postmeta table measurement dropped from 900-something MBs to 6.Three MBs by just deleting ~4,000 data. What sick joke is that? My complete DB measurement dropped to 25 MBs from ~1.2 GBs, in all probability because of the cascade effect of overseas key constraints of the data I deleted.

Outcome?

My web site was a breeze once once more. The load time went down considerably, in all probability as a result of of quicker DB queries and even the system monitoring parameters on the CPanel went down from Purple/Orange to Inexperienced. I did some load testing by executing a number of curl requests to my house page by way of terminal, and the server was not breaking any sweat.

Take a look at that RAM usage!  WHAT? Keep in mind once I talked about operating WordPress stack on my 2006 PC with some 128 MB of memory? Yeah!

So fast much wow!

Classes?

Troubleshooting Godaddy is a long-term thing. You’ll be able to either get into the shit and fix it yourself or you can begin throwing money on the display until you escalate to their core tech workforce which I assume might be by no means for shared internet hosting plans. They could have a terrific help for devoted servers though.

AWS is a f##king superb piece of tech. If you understand how to harden servers, by all means, simply drop these legacy internet hosting providers and go on your personal setup. It’s in all probability cheaper, quicker and extra VFM. A easy t2.micro instance will value < ₹700/month. (Perhaps extra, sigh world financial system!).

Typically, being a smartass isn’t good. Most of the occasions, nevertheless, it retains you protected.

All the time examine logs. -_-

The post Back from Dead

[itstakingtoolongtoload-blog]

TL;DR: Read logs, delete useless shit, maintain the DB clear.

* Warning: An extended learn! *

Oh properly, I feel like a n00b while typing this but that’s how things roll. I’m not positive if I’ve any regular readers left, as to have regular readers one must be a daily writer, which I am clearly not. (Yes, I wish to change.)

Still, when you go back and stalk this blog, you’ll notice that submit frequency for 2018 has been abysmal at it’s greatest. But yes, there’s a cause an fascinating story behind the same. A narrative which might train you a thing or two about hosting WordPress by yourself internet hosting. It has definitely taught me a lot.

So, it began back in January once I began noticing poor loading performance of the location. Being a self-shared hosted occasion, I chalked it up to poor bandwidth or dangerous optimisation by Staff GoDaddy (not a lot constructive about them). Soon I started getting 503 error randomly on the home page, so it was time to research stuff…

Preliminary findings

I logged into GoDaddy account and went into my hosting status page. Immediately I used to be greeted with an orange banner(hyperlink right here) stating I’m reaching the resource limit and I have to improve my internet hosting plan soon to maintain up the graceful operations. I scoffed mildly to their advertising techniques and opened the boot to look underneath the hood.

I opened the CPanel and took a look over on the system panel on the left. To my amazement, virtually all of the parameters have been either terminal pink or warning orange. I appeared up the labels to know the which means of these indicators.

Pink is often my favorite color

Nicely, clearly, I used to be a bit stunned as I have an expertise of operating WordPress since 2006-ish and I have had run pretty complexly themed blogs on my potato local pc (2006 PC, yeah!) utilizing XAMMP on Home windows.

In case you are a backend guy and skim this line above now (in 2018), you will in all probability cringe more durable than you do on Nicki Minaz songs. Every little thing about that line is WRONG (2006, PC, XAMMP).

Anyway, I had a fond memory of WordPress stack being tremendous environment friendly and respectable at dealing with a mere 100+ blog posts with ~15 plugins. Especially once I was not even posting posts commonly and visitors was on a decline.

Something was improper right here.

I referred to as up GoDaddy tech gross sales help and patiently explained my drawback to him only to get his sales pitch – “Sar, I can see the upgrade banner in your account, so can you. Please give cash, we offer you moar resourcez. Oaky?“. Hmm, in all probability not that brash however you get the gist. I (mildly irritated) requested him to escalate my name to his supervisor or someone from *real* tech help.

Properly, they kinda did. A woman (I am NOT a sexist) picked up the decision and I swear to the odin that she was not capable of perceive something about wp-config and the 503 error and requested me if I have cleared my browser cache. I politely requested her to switch the decision to her supervisor.

…

This time a moderately mature sounding guy picked up the decision and ask my drawback. People, I used to be already 3 ranges deep and 20 minutes on the call. I still defined to him my drawback. He opened his admin console, obtained to my box and disabled all plugins (essential) and my custom theme.

The location seemed to breathe for some time and we have been capable of access the same. He informed me plainly that this can be a basic case of resource overutilization and I have to upgrade my hosting from the essential starter plan to at the least their Delux combo something plan. I made the rookie’s mistake of asking the fee for the same as he immediately stated he will simply transfer my name to his gross sales representative. *facepalm* I held up the connection earlier than they might plug me one other degree deep.

I deep down knew that I want to research this myself earlier than throwing moolah on the desk.

Lazy boi excuses; Half – I

This was February 2018. I stored my weekend free and planned to drill down into my GoDaddy shared internet hosting server to seek out the resource drawback. I used to be positive about some bug leaking memory or some infinite loop sucking out my CPU burst cycles. I deliberate to duplicate the setup on AWS t2.micro free occasion and made an account on the same. It does require a credit card on the file before letting to fireside up ec2 situations. My AMEX CC had some drawback because it debits the verification money however nonetheless stated pending for 48 hours. Truthful enough, I assumed I’ll begin in 2 days…

But all of a sudden (a software program engineer approach of shedding joyful tears!), I acquired a huge venture to work on from scratch at my last job @ Shuttl. (Yeah, I have switched career, yet once more). The venture identify rhymed with XMS. I was pretty excited to build a Python Django venture from scratch along with my 2 gifted senior teammates. I used to be completely satisfied that I will get to study a ton and can deploy an entire challenge reside AND……both of my 2 gifted senior teammates left earlier than even the completion of the primary milestone of the undertaking. Yep, just left. And I used to be struck with lots of legacy code to work on, with a little or no concept concerning the framework. I had a great experience with Flask framework but Django had some things carried out in another way.

I slogged at work and the great half was that I was capable of understand most of the code and received fairly good at Django,  carried out a ton of APIs and built a primary dashboard UI.  Anyway, that sucked subsequent 2 months of my life and I utterly forgot about this blog, the 503 challenge and meanwhile it stored getting worse as it began opening sometimes and stored throwing 503 errors for probably the most part.

Lazy boi excuses; Part – II

Nah, let’s transfer forward. I’ve shared too much personal stuff anyway. 😛

Let’s start recent? Scrap all shit.

It was around Might 2018  and I obtained some interns and a junior to assist me with new tasks that our product group was pumping out PRDs out at a tremendous price. I used to be working continuous on similar however still a window of private time opened up. Meanwhile, we migrated our code repositories to Github from Gitlab and I obtained to know concerning the idea of gh-pages.

Github pages – A neat nifty venture by Github which allows you to host stuff from your repo as easy websites or blogs. Free of charge!

This appeared like a candy chime to my ears as I used to be drained of the non-existent help from GoDaddy and their incompetent tech staff (free-tier a minimum of). I began formulating a plan to nuke bitsnapper altogether and start from scratch and make a easy Martin Fowler-esque blog.

Clear, simple and nerdy.

So, I created a simple website blog on jatinkrmalik.github.io and even posted some posts (perhaps 1). However because of lack of a lot formatting options and skill to customize stuff, was a bummer.

I lost curiosity in Github pages quicker than America did in Trump.

AND soon I resigned from Shuttl and left in July as a result of [redacted] causes.

A new beginning, AWS method?!

In late July, I joined a really early stage startup referred to as Synaptic.io after what felt like a swyamwar of supply letters. (okay, no bragging). I used to be impressed by the product and measurement of the staff which you possibly can rely on one hand. It felt profitable to get into core group, build one thing great and have an opportunity to witness progress from the within.

Anyway, Synaptic being a data-heavy company, we use lots of third social gathering providers and instruments for automated deployment to staging, prod and so on. Naturally, AWS is the spine of our deployment infra. I acquired a brand new AWS account each for staging and prod, so I started reading about the identical and obtained to find out about Bitnami WordPress AMI which comes preloaded with the WordPress stack goodies and one can deploy with a click on. It was time to reactivate my AWS account and hearth this up.

A couple of weeks in the past.

Initially of August 2018, I was lastly capable of authenticate my AWS account by punching a new credit card. I fired up a bitnami WordPress occasion and did a setup for the standard WordPress installation. Now all I had to do was simply again up stuff from GoDaddy servers and restore right here.

Sounds straightforward proper?

EXCEPT.

IT.

WAS.

NOT.

I logged into my good previous CPanel, received the FTP creds, loaded FileZilla and began the switch. The ETA was in the north of double-digit hours as the website’s public_html folder was somewhere round 1.5 GB which is comprehensible as I’ve lots of media information and videos. Truthful enough. However this once more was going to take rather a lot of time as the problem with transferring a folder is that every micro-size file (<100 kb) takes mere milliseconds to obtain however takes it’s personal sweet time to write down on the local disk when downloading from the web. The apparent means was to pack the public_html folder into a zip file and then switch.

I did an SSH into the box and ran the command zip -rv public_html.zip public_html/ to zip the listing, but one factor which I forgot was that even whereas zipping a listing, I’ll hit the identical drawback of the zip program manually iterating over all of the information (together with microsized one) and can take quite a bit of time to attempt to compress every one. I left it for 20 minutes only to seek out it solely 10% via my all information. Enchancment? Positive but I am not a very patient man.

Why is that this so slow? Oh, wait.

I appeared into the log (because of -v…verbose), and came upon that I had quite a bit of information in my public_html folder in my xcloner plugin directory resulting from some failed attempts to take website backup from a plugin. I found more such folders of some plugins which haven’t any lively position in powering up this blog.

Checking the dimensions of information within the plugins directory.

So, I deleted these folders in public_html/wp-content/plugins and tried operating the zip command once more. It was still slow and I gave up in a couple of minutes.

Clear up.Zip them em!

I google about wrapping information in a zipper with out compressing a lot and obtained to study ranges of compression in zip utility which fits from 1-9 with 1 being least compression and 9 being the very best degree of compression whereas it defaults to 6. So, I attempted again this time with butzip -1rv public_html.zip public_html/ quickly realized the iteration over gazzilion information take extra time than compression logic for the CPU.

Simply wrapping.

I learn more and came upon that making a tarball w/o compression is quicker than zip utility, so it was time to attempt that and perhaps let it complete in its own sweet time. So, I fired up the command: tar -caf public.tar public_html and left it operating.

Unsure if it ever completed…

Then I logged into phpMyAdmin (an internet app to handle MySQL occasion) to take a backup of my bitsnapper WordPress DB. I simply clicked on export and the downloaded file was of measurement 48 MBs which was odd as in UI it was displaying a DB measurement of 1.2 GB. I knew SQL backup can compress some knowledge but of this magnitude? WTF. I opened the SQL file in VS code and clearly, the file was incomplete and had some HTML gibberish at the end which on inspection was the HTML for phpMyAdmin. Bizarre?

I attempted exporting the DB as soon as again from the UI and this time the dimensions of the backup.sql file was 256 MBs. I felt this was applicable but my instinct did a proper click on and opened in my editor as soon as again. Certainly enough the file was nonetheless incomplete with that gibberish. Truthful to say, the backup from phpMyAdmin was corrupted.

prime

I did an ssh into my internet hosting box using the creds in my GoDaddy account and tried every little thing from checking the output of system instructions like:prime, ps -ef, free but the box is properly sandboxed by GoDaddy to avoid any unauthorised access. I even tried to do a privilege escalation with intention of gaining extra management over my hosting account and perhaps restart mysqld however all in useless.

pssudo?

I knew about taking direct DB backups from the shell utilizing mysqldump -h -u -p > db_backup.sql so it was time to attempt that. I ran the command and tailed the backup SQL file with tail -f db_backup.sql to look into its content material because it populated. It began exporting DB nicely and as I started feeling badass and went to seize a cup of espresso, the terminal introduced me with the error message:

man mysqldumpFirst try.

I googled about the problem and it had something to do with the max_alllowed_packet variable of MySQL. The one two methods to vary that was either my modifying /and so forth/my.cnf file (which I used to be positive I didn’t have sudo entry to) or run SET GLOBAL max_allowed_packet=1073741824; query within the MySQL console.

Admin? No? Sorry.

Yeah, both of them didn’t work. Obviously. You want respective system admin consumer access for both.

The roadblock was getting stupidly irritating, and I had to get the backup.  I googled more and somebody prompt to cross the max_allowed_packet variable with the mysqldump command as.–max-allowed-packet=1073741824 Tried that too, didn’t work.

With –max_allowed_packet

I was tired and needed to sleep, so I terminated my ec2 occasion and slept.

TODAY.

At present I used to be feeling motivated and deliberate to look into the problem from another angle.

As an alternative of utilizing the WordPress AMI, I made a decision to create the whole setup from scratch. I launched an occasion of ec2 with Amazon Linux AMI. The goal was to know if that is actually GoDaddy messing with me or is it some fault in my database which is leading to the entire shebang.

I used this submit as steerage to arrange every little thing from grounds up.

I logged in once more to my GoDaddy account to be greeted by the orange banner urging me to upgrade. I felt weak and was nearly to click improve and throw some dough to get the straightforward means out. But no, that’s towards the hacker mentality I work with.

So, I opened the CPanel, phpMyAdmin and tried taking a backup again. It again downloaded a 250-something MB file with gibberish at the end. I manually eliminated the last half of the file and uploaded it to my ec2 instance by way of scp and imported it into my distant MySQL occasion.

After importing the public_html information, importing SQL backup and configuring wp-config.php file with DB host and creds, I restarted each httpd (Apache server) and MySQL (DB server) and opened http://ec2-instance-url:80 and to my partial euphoria, it did load up my header and footer for bitsnapper however no posts have been seen.

Hmm… something was missing.

I seemed into the tables on phpMyAdmin and my MySQL server on the ec2 occasion and duh, my wp_xxx_posts table and wp_xxx_postsmeta was lacking. Yeah! So, the problem was that my DB measurement has such giant that Godaddy shared hosting limited bandwidth was not allowing me to take a backup of the whole DB. Clearly, I had to repair this.

I wrote a custom python script to take a backup of the bitsnapper DB table-by-table to avoid hitting the max_allowed_packet limit as observed last week however the identical error mysqldump: Error 2013: Misplaced connection to MySQL server throughout question when dumping table wp_xxx_postmeta  stored popping up.

I started my intense googling session as soon as again and queried alongside the line of  ‘how you can backup DB from GoDaddy shared internet hosting‘ and ‘GoDaddy + shared hosting + mysqldump + error 2013‘ and by some means by a fluke, I landed on the Backup part of my ….drumroll?….. CPanel! *facepalm*

Facepalm second!

It had every thing I was making an attempt to do above with a flick of a click. I ended all my previous efforts and download the complete web site backup which had each public_html folder and DB backup SQL. The whole archive was nonetheless 2.5 GB which was big for a small blog like this.

Anyway, I did a scp to my ec2 instance and tried to exchange the information in /var/www/html with public_html/ and restored mysql backup by way of mysql -u -p < db_backup.sql and this time it labored with out an error. I restarted my mysql and apache http server by service mysql restart; serivce httpd restart; and tried to load http://:80 and presto! the entire website loads up.

The euphoria this time also lasted for a brief burst as within 2-3 reloads the replicated website again began throwing up the same 503 error and my shell session chocked up.

503! Not again.

I fired up a brand new terminal and tried SSHing into the box however the box just turned unresponsive. I went to the AWS admin console to examine my ec2 instance monitoring for the machine parameters and observed an identical sample as with the CPanel (left panel) parameter console.  It was all purple and orange as soon as again.

Clearly, GoDaddy’s internet hosting wasn’t the only wrongdoer.

Real IT help == Self-troubleshooting!

It was then once I decided to shed my worry of peeping into the DB tables because it was a gone trigger anyway and I nonetheless had a partial backup from last yr once I migrated the blog from WordPress managed internet hosting to standard shared internet hosting box.

Boys, it was time to run some queries. The first thing I did was to login to the phpMyAdmin and lookup the tables, schema and properties. I used to be assured that the issue is with the DB measurement and that’s the rationale for slow queries which is chocking up the CPU burst time.

I seemed into tables and located table wp_xxx_postmeta to be around 950 MB in measurement with simply 11000 data. This immediately fired up alarms in my head as I have labored with multi-million row DBs during my stint in Adobe & Shuttl and the table measurement was principally in the vary of few MBs solely. A tough again of the notice calculation said a median measurement of 100 kb per report on this table which was weird because once I seemed up the schema for a similar, it simply was storing 4 data i.e. meta_id, post_id, meta_key, meta_value.

Hey DB, you cray?

It was time to prod this table and understand the info inside it. I fired up a simple query:

SELECT meta_key, rely”text” FROM ‘wp_s4w671g0kp_postmeta’ GROUP by meta_key order by rely”text” desc;

Lo behold, the end result was a bit shocking as till now I used to be considering that this desk may include submit revisions or metadata solely but the query outcome was something like this:

meta_key rely”text” _total_views

1895

_view_ip_list

1892

_jetpack_related_posts_cache

1206

_wp_attached_file

1144

_wp_attachment_metadata

1101

wp-smpro-smush-data

1069

_wp_attachment_image_alt

903

_edit_lock

155

_edit_last

140

_yoast_wpseo_focuskw

118

_yoast_wpseo_linkdex

118

_thumbnail_id

116

_yoast_wpseo_metadesc

114

_publicize_twitter_user

107

_wpas_done_all

103

_total_likes

77

_like_ip_list

77

_wpas_skip_3914702

75

_wpas_skip_11104850

72

_yoast_wpseo_title

56

_wp_attachment_backup_sizes

40

_yoast_wpseo_focuskw_text_input

38

_wp_old_slug

35

essb_hideplusone

29

essb_hidevk

29

Do you see it? There are some 1800+ data for _view_ip_list, _total_views,  _jetpack_related_posts_cache which is principally nothing however data originated from WordPress personal homegrown fashionable plugin – Jetpack. I googled a bit about security delete for these data, didn’t find anything,  took a leap of religion and executed:

Delete from FROM ‘wp_xxx_postmeta’ WHERE meta_key = ‘_view_ip_list’;

Delete from FROM ‘wp_xxx_postmeta’ WHERE meta_key = ‘_total_views’;

Delete from FROM ‘wp_xxx_postmeta’ WHERE meta_key = ‘_jetpack_related_posts_cache’;

It deleted some 4,000 data out of 11,000 data it had and look what happened once I refreshed phpMyAdmin?

All cleaned up!

Yus! My wp_xxx_postmeta table measurement dropped from 900-something MBs to 6.Three MBs by just deleting ~4,000 data. What sick joke is that? My complete DB measurement dropped to 25 MBs from ~1.2 GBs, in all probability because of the cascade effect of overseas key constraints of the data I deleted.

Outcome?

My web site was a breeze once once more. The load time went down considerably, in all probability as a result of of quicker DB queries and even the system monitoring parameters on the CPanel went down from Purple/Orange to Inexperienced. I did some load testing by executing a number of curl requests to my house page by way of terminal, and the server was not breaking any sweat.

Take a look at that RAM usage!  WHAT? Keep in mind once I talked about operating WordPress stack on my 2006 PC with some 128 MB of memory? Yeah!

So fast much wow!

Classes?

Troubleshooting Godaddy is a long-term thing. You’ll be able to either get into the shit and fix it yourself or you can begin throwing money on the display until you escalate to their core tech workforce which I assume might be by no means for shared internet hosting plans. They could have a terrific help for devoted servers though.

AWS is a f##king superb piece of tech. If you understand how to harden servers, by all means, simply drop these legacy internet hosting providers and go on your personal setup. It’s in all probability cheaper, quicker and extra VFM. A easy t2.micro instance will value < ₹700/month. (Perhaps extra, sigh world financial system!).

Typically, being a smartass isn’t good. Most of the occasions, nevertheless, it retains you protected.

All the time examine logs. -_-

The post Back from Dead

[lexxikitty-blog1]

Actual Stop by Kara A. McLeod Series: Agent O’Connor: #1 Rating: 2.8 out of 5.0 Read: May 23 to 24 2016

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review. Insert here my standard 'this is the first work I've read by this author' statement. In praise of this book and this author: the author appears to be capable of writing a coherent, competent, clear book with relatively detailed characters. In the opposite of praise of this book (though not of this author): baring a few minor characters, I somewhat grew to rather dislike the characters. To a deep level of dislike. Plus, while the book appeared competently written, there were a few issues I had with it on a structural level as opposed to substance level. There were several occasions in which the author spent time creating build up, and then not delivering. Specifically referring to: (1) a great deal of time and energy was put in by the characters to get ready for the president of the USA to visit NY, it is the reason why the main character's ex-girlfriend was in NY - for that visit of the President. And then . . . nothing. Mind you, I wasn't exactly expecting much. Heck, I'd have lived if there was just a line that said roughly 'the president entered the car and was driven to the hotel'. Instead we got build up and then . . . the after party. The story-line went something like 'the president is coming' to 'Wheels up' (in other words, the president has left). It is not a huge issue, just felt like something of a let down. Though I didn't specifically deduct any 'points' for this issue. (2) for some unknown reason, a real jackass of a man popped up in the book. Ryan's boss (Ryan being both the main character and only POV) asked Ryan to 'put him in his place', or words to that effect. Because he is being a real arrogant asshole. The storyline went from having that boss asking Ryan, to Ryan at her desk looking tired. As in, none of the actual event takes place in the book. I've no idea why this scene was in there in the first place, there's no inherent reason for it's inclusion, and then the action part of the scene (like the action part above) got cut. (3) for no known reason, Ryan's direct boss (different guy than in 2, who is a higher up guy), is a real asshole. Towards many, but especially towards Ryan. I've no inherent problem with this characterization. Nor do I have any inherent problem with the 'why' being left blank. My problem has to do with how a 'mystery' got generated around him. That was never answered. he acted suspicious in several occasions - (a) screaming at his wife; (b) practically begging Ryan to not investigate the suspected terrorist; (c) storming into Ryan's office then coming to a surprised stop when he realized she was actually in there (what was that about?). etc. Clouds of mystery. Added to the 'real asshole' characterization. I kind of assume(d) that this might have been build up for another book. (4) I have no real inherent problem with the build up and then lack of follow-through in four. Though it follows a pattern, so I included it A possible terrorist plot was revealed. Unless it was connected to the events that occurred at the end of the book, it was just a plot thread without resolution (5) Meghan (Ryan's partner). (a) She acted kind of pissed every time Allison (Ryan's ex) turned up; (b) acted very suspiciously at the end of the book engagement ring on finger - refused to discuss it; acted super ashamed; somewhere along the way I had the thought that all the characters were dislikeble except for Meghan - and the only way I'd probably dislike her if it turned out she was having an affair with the dispicable boss . . . and then she turned up with an engagement ring. More likely, the ring is connected to that asshole rookie agent who Ryan had to 'put in his place', and who Ryan showed great displeasure with - Meghan would probably be ashamed to be engaged to that guy On the substance level: every character, for the most part, had a good bit of characterization stuffed into them; but were quite loathable. Loathsome. Unlikable. I didn't like any of them. Mystery: the only real book long mystery involved that guy who had passed counterfeit money and possibly had ties to terrorism. That played a big part in the beginning of the book, but very little the rest of the way. Action: except for one specific scene at or near the end, there was a lot of build up for action scenes, then the actual action scenes got 'cut' (again, except for the last action sequence). Romance: Let's see. Love triangle. Cheating. Assumation of cheating. Etc. I didn't particularly like the relationship between Ryan and Lucia (the two were dating at the start of the book). Ryan was quite dismissive of her, and refused to call the woman she had been dating for six months her girlfriend. Lucia seemed quite lovable and deserved anyone other than Ryan well, other than cheating on Ryan, and going bat shit insane, but whatever. I do not really get the Ryan-Allison relationship. It really read like an abusive relationship. Ryan loved Allison. Allison showed a certain amount of affection. Allison did not wish to publically acknowledge the relationship. Got pissed at Ryan if Ryan crossed a line and showed too much affection (or even, at times, was in the same room). Got pissed at Ryan if Ryan didn't show affection. Basically Allison was a massive bitch to Ryan, and Ryan was psychologically abused. I'm not actually sure if we are talking about love here or Stockholm Syndrome. None of Allison's 'reasons' for her actions, which get revealed at the end, are the kind of thing that would give her a pass or otherwise . . . . um . . . forgive her. And, quite frankly, I've heard the abuser in an abuse relationship saying some of the same things Allison gave. She was afraid. She didn't know how to handle her feelings. She did what she thought was best for both of them; without consulting Ryan. Boiled down: I'd give this book some rating nearish 2.8 stars, rounded up to 3. In thinking about whether or not I'd read this author again, I reminded myself of how many books I've DNF, or rated lowly, by authors I'd given a ton of 5 stars to. (I believe the author with the most books I've rated 5 stars is also the same author I've DNF'd the most books by - Georgette Heyer). Point being, sometimes the same author will create love/hate inside of me. So yes I'll probably read something else by this author. Heck, I'd recently read a book in which something like 99% of the readers gave a super low rating, or DNF'd the book (no, I'm not talking about this book here). I also gave that book a low rating. And then, not immediately but eventually, I read another book by that same author. Authors that can create emotions in me will be given plenty of chances to interest me. Well, 2 to five chances. And yes, there are parts of this book that enraged me. Many parts. - Like the part wherein Ryan got pissed at her girlfriend when her girlfriend got angry at her for canceling yet another date. Without actually remembering to call to cancel. - And the several occasions in which Ryan did improper things (interviewing a counterfeit suspect, as a favor, when she had no power to do so (power? authority. I mean authority); ironically, or not ironically, by doing so she found a reason, a justification but that was after the fact), some of which are illegal (driving while texting/talking on the phone). Re: improper. I'd put that one in my status updates: Seriously, what the does she expect to accomplish here? I thought of that before she even entered the apartment. (A) she's let a possible criminal know the 'government' is onto him; (B) gained no information for her troubles (from the interview, later learned some things); (C) if she had gained information . . . what was she going to do with it? She wasn't authorized to be talking to this guy. she later traced some of his calls. Saw connection to terrorists. Her reaction? When learning that an old partner had rejoined the counterfeit division of the Secret Service, inform him that she might have some questions for him about a case. As I noted in my notes (and then saw in the book itself (as in, Ryan also thought of this issue); learn of a terrorist connection, who should you contact? Ryan thinks of asking the coutnerfeit division some questions. Apparently forgetting (and then later remembering) that she was tasked to the joint-terror task force hmm. The book was/is a lot more coherent than my review. May 24 2016

[goodwombsandbadsons-blog]

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