#Second Sky Books

[clairekreads]

Bloodlust Bites by Luanne Bennett @Luanne_Bennett @SecondSkyBooks #booksontour #extract #bloodlustbites

A rare second post for me and it’s a goodie! I’m helping to close the #BooksOnTour for Luanne Bennett’s second Charley Underwood urban fantasy novel Bloodlust Bites. Continue reading Bloodlust Bites by Luanne Bennett @Luanne_Bennett @SecondSkyBooks #booksontour #extract #bloodlustbites

[deadsetobsessions]

Danny no longer has a haunt. So… he decides to find another one. And while he technically has a whole world (other dimensions aren’t an option because he’s going to stay near where Jazz’s grave is, damn it) there’s only a couple of other places with enough ambient ectoplasm to sustain him. Nanda Parbat, Tokyo, and Gotham.

Nanda Parbat had a weird old musty immortal that kept trying to summon him and exchange power for the ability to “take a worthy body and rain as much destruction” as he’d like. As if Danny would need a body to bring the world to its knees.

Tokyo… it’s too far from Jazz’s grave. He could ask Wulf or even open his own portal but when Danny tried it out, Tokyo was too peaceful. Obviously there’s crime, but nothing… nothing big like Danny’s used to.

Danny ends up picking Gotham, even if the sewer zombies and the weird group of rich fruit loops with an adoption problem creeps him out. So, he destroys the portal, packs up his parents’ house and sells it, and hauls ass to the cesspool calling his name. His family’s stuff is stored respectfully in a vault located on the deepest parts of his personal haunt in the Infinite Realms.

And honestly, he’s doing better. Sure, he’s got a shitty apartment near another revenant’s almost-haunt and he feels like he’s drowning all of the time, but Danny isn’t in danger of turning into Dan, he’s catching up on royal paperwork, and he’s got like a job as a barista. In his own coffee shop that paid for using his parent’s money (who, despite their hazardous everything, made a crap ton of money off of their more normal inventions).

Gotham’s got some pretty interesting local gangs, most of which respected the sanctity of Danny’s cafe. Sure, they tried blowing it up and tried extorting money from him in the form of “protection costs” but after three months of failure, they gave up.

(Really, the local gangs gave up when they saw him take three shotgun shells to the chest and continued to work.) (They didn’t know it never hit him. Intangibility is extremely useful.)

The Rogues, on the other hand, just gave Danny flashbacks. Their gimmicks are different, sure, but after years of Box Ghost, Skuller, Lunch Lady, etc., Danny’s more than done with costumed villains. They don’t bother him either. Some of the reason is probably due to Harley and Ivy, who had walked into the cafe and (because they were bruised and scratched up from a fight) triggered Danny’s mother hen tendencies. They were promptly fed and watered and caffeinated and their hyenas were also similarly taken care of. They declared the cafe under their protection and that was that.

Red Hood stops by, and begins to interrogate him. But when Danny met his… helmet eyes? The crime lord paused, paid for his coffee, and sat in a corner table of the cafe for the rest of the day.

And he kept coming back?

But Danny figures it’s because Hood was a revenant and people who had come close to death tends to feel more comfortable around him.

(Considering this is Gotham where people almost die every other day? Yeah, he’s pretty much friends with everyone. Or at least, less likely to get shot.)

(Hood does stay because of the King’s presence and the Pit calming itself, but also Danny’s hot and he’s got a sleeper build and Hood definitely did not imagine himself in the place of the heavy box he saw Danny lift effortlessly onto a table. No.)

But of course, the peace couldn’t last forever. But by then, Danny was so antsy, he welcomed the trouble with open arms.

It starts with a clown. Danny knows who he is. He knows who Danny is.

So, Danny has no idea why the clown thought it would be a good idea to aggravate the owner of Gotham’s official neutral grounds. See, Clovkwork? Danny’s learned how to gauge his own political importance!

“HAHAHAHAHA! COME OUT, DANNY-BOY! LET ME TELL YOU A JOKE!”

Danny comes out and grabs a chair, and with a flat expression, says, “you’re not funny and I hate clowns.”

And then he swings and slams the chair into the Joker’s face. Over and over again until Danny’s sure the clown won’t get back up. The thing about Gotham’s outdoor chairs is that they’re mad out of steel and are bolted down to the ground to prevent undedicated thieves (dedicated thieves can and will steal the bolted down steel chairs). The Joker’s hired muscle just watched this scrawny twenty-something year old yank the steel chair and take some of the fucking ground and the bolts with it and beat the fuck out of their boss who is the literal Joker.

They surrender on the spot and is taken to jail. Danny just smiles at the officers who come by and since he’s got pretty privilege and they don’t want to mess with the guy who, again, owns one of Gotham’s official neutral ground and also beat up Joker without breaking a sweat, the officers just lets him go with a warning.

And then the bats comes, and wow, Danny’s playing mentor to a formally dead person again!

But before that, the Red Hood asks for an autograph on the Gotham Gazette article with a picture of a tired Danny standing over Joker’s prone body. Then Hood stammers through asking Danny out (which Danny said yes to because he’s tired, not blind, and Hood is built like a brick house and HOT).

Batman interrogates him. Danny, who can tell that this man needs therapy and is Sad TM, tells Bats that Danny’s died before and that’s why he’s like this. He also calls Batman a furry, but like in a nice way. And then he kicks Batman out with a coffee and a file on Nanda Parbat.

Now, Danny’s got a date to prepare for and he realizes that maybe this is what Jazz wanted for him- to be happy and mostly safe and happy. (Or, happier, he thinks. It’s been a long time since he’s been truly happy, but this might be a good start)

[pinkshgum]

AAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i read @thisnameisnotspokenfor wish rewrite AU and GOSH IS IT GOOD!!!!!!!! Asha and Cepheus have my heart!!!!!!! EVERYONE GO READ IT RIGHT NOW!!!!

seriously every chapter had me frothing at the mouth kicking my feet!!!! so i decided to draw some scenes from chapters 8, 23 and 29!

i commented on chapter 28 about how amazing this fic is but i'll say it again!! the worldbuilding, the characters and the references to past disney films!!!!! gahhhhhhh!!!!!1111!!1 (also, fellow treasure planet enjoyer, gotta respect that)

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

Ted saying that no driver has had this level of attention on them since Michael Schumacher...

Gentlemen, a short view into the past; Max's debut season, his Red Bull debut, the literal rule changed as a result of his debut in the sport... oh and everyone and their mother calling Kimi Max 2.0 and Toto's second chance at signing debut!Max since he failed the first time around...

[sleepyyghostt]

shoutout to the guy who told me i should read discworld when i was a little kid. one of my parents' friends, i think, who must have heard how much i read (at the time). planted a seed in my brain thats finally come to fruition a decade later, i'm so glad im reading this

[bambitrait]

tui has another fucking book to write because peril and sky still haven't had the reunion nor the vengeance they deserve

[bonebabbles]

How is Clear Sky literally always worse than I remember him?? (I stopped DOTC at the third book I believe)

It may have something to do with the fact you stopped at Book 3, which is First Battle. The book after First Battle is The Blazing Star (and the one I'm posting from now), where the narrative has just decided to treat him as a completely new person.

He never addresses anything about how fucking awful he was in books 1 - 3. Book 4 hits and the book falls face-first into a "redemption arc" which is just everyone immediately forgiving him even though he's still a huge piece of shit. He's "Working Sooo Hard" to not randomly murder people and that means he's a good person, and the writers have a panic attack if any character goes more than 30 seconds without sucking his toes.

So if you're coming at it with Clear Sky from books 1 - 3 in mind, it's infuriating. You remember the actual character they wrote so the "redemption arc" feels as flat as it actually is. It's like watching Fire Lord Ozai suddenly be considered a good guy and the entire plot of Avatar changing midway through Book 2.

[hisbutler-problematic]

i’m actually really upset that the reveal scene in book of murder doesn’t have the same Gay Vibes as the manga. like. i think seb and ciel deserve to be allowed to flirt like the two worst people on earth while a man has a wholeass meltdown across the table from them

ciel: i think you let them accuse me of murder for fun & on purpose <3 seb: no way bocchan <333 i just thought it was rude to leave me with work just cos you were sleepy <333 a man experiencing a mental break: what seb: and then he sent me to get murdered ❤️❤️❤️ a man who is gonna need SERIOUS therapy: WHAT

seb: even i didn’t think he’d put on his rings to slap me ❤️😍(🥵)

ciel will exhibit the most fucked up & twisted personality traits and seb will have to exercise ALL of his self control not to propose then and there

[sskk-manifesto]

(｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡

[my-strange-attraction]

Not me searching up the rainbow magic series on here (for possible tattoo inspo? These books were responsible for so much of my personality/ how I turned out now) and finding out my weird obsession with those weeks was very much a lesbian thing I did

[serapiocarrioncrow]

working on something and thinking about the essay I wrote in undergrad about Black Sun. I'll share a piece that is still particularly striking to me:

Serapio’s ‘death’ also reflects Quetzalcoatl’s in the scenery around them: “[i]t is said that when [Quetzalcoatl] burned up, when his ashes had piled high, all the precious birds that soar up to and visit heaven appeared to witness them[.]” (Anales de Cuauhtitlán in Austin 124). Similarly, upon Serapio’s ‘death,’ crows gather around his body: “[t]he birds circled the figure, calling out to one another in distinctive bursts and clicks” (Roanhorse 447).

[audreyrosebooks]

i am re-reading The Shadow Thief despite my absolute terror - it’s been a while, and i’m scared i’ll hate it/regret querying, so to combat my fear mama’s gonna liveread a little bit 

[flecks-of-stardust]

slightly different route:

the legendary one cycle sprint to ascension! route suggested by @sevenrs which i decided to try. the route is honestly pretty similar to what i was doing before, with a few minor tweaks that ended up making it faster than my original route.

as you can see from the score screen though, it's not actually 'one' cycle; i starved twice to bring my karma up so i could go to pebbles. but the game doesn't know any better :) tbh this was pretty fun, particularly because i'm more familiar with the route now. if you're okay with navigating drainage system and filtration system in the dark, you can give it a whirl!

[artificial-horizon]

getting rejected from one ATC company while getting accepted to the next interview stage with another ATC company on the same day... why r u doing this to my emotions

[stylishanachronism]

*grump grump*

It’s a novel about discovering you’re queer in your twenties what the fuck are y’all talking about.

[skyllion-uwu]

Finished Gideon the Ninth