It’s been a busy week over on the Patreon. I tried my best not to spam everyone with updates — that way lies madness and people disliking you — but it makes sense to catch people up as well as keep folks abreast of what’s coming up next here on Banter Latte.
Folio #1 is very close to complete — to the point that after running a poll to make sure folks wouldn’t be upset, we triggered the ‘paid post’ to make the June payout. As we had a writing budget of 40,000 words, and as of now we’re over 77,000 words… I think we can call that ‘okay.’
For Patreon subscribers at any level, there were the first rendered desktop backgrounds (a work in progress, but then they often are). The cheerful image at the top of this post comes from that — it’s a scene from “Debriefing Leather,” featuring Leather and bonus guest villain Moriarty James, who I’ve been waiting to use for three years. That story comes out this weekend.
At the $5 level, we had the promised pinup of Leather in her ‘monologue/formal suit,’ because of cheesecake. The face detail I posted comes from that model — it’s also the first picture to actually show Leather with her piercings and tattoos, which needed to happen because we make such a deal out of it in the story proper. There’s also the transcript of a Youtube video that examines a conspiracy theory from an Olympic trials gone wrong several years back, which puts together many puzzle pieces but misses the core point — and also has Leather’s reaction to the video, because reactions are fun.
At the $10 level we’ve had several ‘backstory’ posts — including the promised explanation of Altiversal physics and Ninespace, which also serves as the modern premiere of 023SG — the successor to both my old Superguy writing and the Mythic Heroes stories from Banter Latte. It also mentions many, many obscure sodas. A series of backstory posts depicting the reactions of different people in the Justice Wing world to the publication of the ‘Interviewing Leather’ article in Amplifier magazine. This includes James Rider (who owns the liquor store that marked the transition of Dynamo Girl to Leather), Darkhood, Inspector Harris and Vortex (the hero from Interviewing Leather, the lead investigator from the story, and the counterparting/rename of Transit — Meridian City’s second tier hero), three members of Justice Wing (Broadhead — the resident archer who isn’t Darkhood, Greyfalcon — who once kicked Leather through a wall, and the mage Whippoorwill), and most recently Paragon and Falconer (the premiere hero of Justice Wing and the Digital Intelligence who acts as their majordomo and dispatcher). We had a couple of stealth origins in there as well.
And all that’s not even to mention the multiple short stories and novellas already on there.
This weekend features the last of this Folio’s short stories — the aforementioned “Debriefing Leather,” which has nothing to do with underwear. It also features poetry, the Banter Latte returns of Corbett-877 and the Mythology of the Modern World, and the return of “The Adventures of Brigadier General John Stark.” A couple of fact sheets and we call it done and move on fully into Folio #2 next week.
Folio #2 is coming together in my head. The Justice Wing side is going to cant towards origin stories for a number of our primary cast, along with the last few short stories for the Leather anthology — which hopefully will actually be in eBook stories and available in resplendent paper before the end of the month, because my sister has a birthday coming up and I can’t think of anything more ‘little brother’ than giving her a copy of my own damn book. Those stories include three loose ends — one with a gymnast, one with a person from Leather’s past, and one with a hero, as well as Leather’s apprenticeship as a villain and her inauguration into the second tier of villainy. The aforementioned origins will likely include Paragon at the least — that story’s called “the Ninespace Cuckoo” and it’s been half done for years, now.
But before most of that, next week will hit up non Justice Wing stuff for a while — the next Lovelace½, the first official story post from 023SG, and stuff like that. I’m really having a blast, and I hope you guys are too.
Thanks as always!
