Glory Bros No More! (Patreon)

Hello there friends!  A little update on what I've been up to the past week. So some of you know I started a second Patreon with my friend Dave called Glory Bros.  I built this page as a way to to help my friend, Dave, and his financial situation. My motivation was, lets get him some monies so he can pay off his debt and we can travel the world! He's helped my projects through the years and this was my way of thanking him. He'd mention a few times how he wanted to be more than just help on these projects during our nights out drinking.  I took that to heart, yeah that makes sense, we should own something together where we can collaborate. Fast forward a year of talking and prepping and I started this Patreon page, a 50/50 partnership. Both of ours, equally, to grow and build.

I'd already started this Miltonius Arts Patreon and I knew the ins and outs so I took the reigns. Built the youtube, instagram, facebook and patreon pages. Filled them out with art and information. No problem.  I started learning about social media ads, lets really give this thing a boost.  I got carried away with that "promote button" staring at me and promoted the hell out of it. 10$ bucks here 6$ bucks here doesn't seem like a lot but it adds up. I got my bill this February. Close to a 300$ dollars spent. No problem, lets build this thing up!
All I asked of Dave, help me keep this page updated 2 times a month. We'll trade off, one week I'll post, the next week you post. Keep our fans informed. Show them where their money is going. Long story short, the equal partnership didn't even hold the first month.  I told him, you can just post a pic of your guitar and say, I'm doing stuff. It doesn't need to be elaborate just post something, anything! Pretend you care about this! He said yeah that makes sense. I'll be better about communicating. Another month, nothing. No text saying, hey man I know it's my turn to post but I'm too tired. Zero communication. But he did manage to post to Facebook he's watching a movie. Cool...

Anyway, I demoned out on him and then came back down to earth. I still consider him a friend but I'll never work with him as a partner again. He's in a bad place and we don't gel anymore. My place isn't great but my outlook is bright, I'll never give up trying to become better. He's done great things for Akumi and I can't forget. The only people that can make me upset are people I'm close to and it takes a lot of pushing of my buttons to get me there. He got there with his lack of empathy about what this page meant to me. 

Side note as well. When my mom had her heart attack while I was in Vietnam last year. I reached out to Dave who never responded. But then I get a call from Adam whom I didn't even tell. He'd seen a post my sister made about my mom on Facebook and reached out. You learn what kind of people you have in your life real fast during tragedy. Adam's a good friend which is why I'll never hesitate to help him no matter what disagreements we have. 

Clarity through Conflict
So everything happens for a reason. I believe in Law of Attraction and this blow out had to happen. Why?  I've been stretching myself in two directions for years now. For two friends who couldn't be more opposite. Adam and Dave. First direction was for my friend from high school, Dave. How do I thank Dave for his help through the years.  I started by making a music video of his song, I did this Patreon but on top of all that, I kept myself planted in a spot where we could work together because we did so well in the past. So I said let's build this Patreon and make the Akumi animations again.  Second direction, my super driven friend Adam. He calls me out of no where one day years ago and says we should make a game. I say yes! Delays happened and I let them happen, I let the Akumi Wars game get pushed back because me and Dave we're building something. If Adam wasn't ready to finish Akumi Wars yet, it meant more time for me and Dave to build the animation. Two different directions. No more.

Anyway, now it's time to go full steam ahead on Akumi Wars my friends.  I'll still be making animations too but it'll all fit into Akumi Wars project.  I thought about giving my second Patreon page over to Dave but he'd do nothing with it, obviously. I thought about shutting it down too. But you know what? I'm gonna keep it going.  There's still people there that believed in what we we're doing there and I'm gonna keep that alive alone. We won't have Dave's sweet tunes anymore but we'll find it somewhere else.  That second page will dedicate Akumi to a mainstream audience. I don't know how to give up on my dreams.

Onwards and Upwards my friends!
-Miltonius