Weekly Update - 10th December, 2017

Hey everyone. Let's talk. If you're on twitter at all this week was full of Discourse about Patreon's new processing system. Everyone knows it sucks. I hope they roll it back but I'm not going to hold my breath. I see lots of people talking about boycotting Patreon and pulling their projects and their pledges. I guess I understand wanting to do something when you're mad, but ...

Abnormal Mapping isn't going anywhere. We only had about four cancellations, and we actually had some new people pledge I assume in solidarity for a small site that is now really dependent upon your support to continue to exist. Our hosting, the games and books we discuss every month, the ability to buy food? All of that is made easier and sometimes possible at all thanks to you. If we were to lose our funding, if we were to quit, we would stop. It's as simple as that. We were planning on quitting before we launched the Patreon because it was simply too expensive to keep running this, and now with the new shows and a Real Grown Up Website it's definitely too much. 

So while I understand the new system has people upset I encourage you to continue supporting us and others. Maybe boost your $1 pledges to $2-3 to keep yourself from getting screwed, and if that means you have to pledge to less, I readily encourage you to think bottom up instead of top down. There are many patreons I pledge to that are much smaller than even this channel. Please consider pledging to those with expressed need over the five digit monthly superusers. Personally, with my own money? I'll just eat the new fee costs and keep supporting the channels I support. It'll raise my monthly spend by a few bucks, but I want to support these people and I will. I hope you'll do the same. It's not like there are actually better alternatives.

In happier news, because of people's very gracious reaction to this week, we've actually hit our $350 goal. That means we're going to launch a movie podcast, and it's actually already getting moving because I've really been looking forward to talking about movies again. Right now, it'll be up mid-January, and I hope you look forward to it. It will, like most things on the AM network, be primarily focused on older things and not new releases, so expect lots of things you might have been meaning to watch or can easily get on rental services and less 'out this week' chatter. 

Okay, that's it. Sorry for the length of this update, but I wanted to talk about where we're at and what we're doing going forward. Thank you everyone who is supporting us, and know that we intend to keep going as long as we're able to do so. It is honestly, utterly because of all of you. Thanks again. Thanks forever. 

Now, the updates:

• Second Officer Slog talks about the first Discovery Book, Desperate Hours, and the very first pilot of Star Trek in this episode about the very nature of the Federation. 
• The Great Gundam Project returns to space this week as Char and Amuro are forced to fight forever and we question just how clever Sayla actually is. 
• This week's Patreon Letter is a grab bag of impressions about games because I always spend the holidays knocking out my backlog. 
• The Abnormal Mapping discord continues to be a cool place to hang out. Everyone was live-reacting to the VGAs and even that boring PSX show Friday night. Everyone's nice. Come hang out! 
• I've started a blind let's play of Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin. I've technically never played Dark Souls before this, though I did play Bloodborne. Watch me stress out and try not to die! Trying to put up episodes pretty regularly right now, so there's lots to enjoy. 

And that's it. This upcoming week is going to be super busy. Please look forward to a new Abnormal Mapping, an Amory Score, and more!