I miss the Good Ol' Days.

"But Alhon!" you say. "You are far too young to have Good Ol' Days!"

Well, yes, for the most part, but I made a jump this summer that I hadn't thought was big until very recently. I jumped from being entirely in the realm of Fan Productions into an actual sponsored (in a way) product.
The nice things about being part of a team that worked on Fan Productions, whether the team was 1, 2, or 40 people, was that you had a certain number of rights that you took for granted. One of them was the ability to say pretty much whatever you wanted to say on a certain topic. US Free Speech Laws protect people who express opinions, even if said opinions are negative. Most companies who have franchises or works that get homage'd by fan productions welcome them, realizing that they help foster the fandom and spread the word. Fan projects are works of labour, of love, and any help is necessary.

I miss those days.

I found out tonight that I have to do something I really didn't want to, but knew was coming. I have to fire someone from a volunteer job with a podcast I work on. Now, it used to be you can't do that. It's a fan production and labour of love... and you're just going to tell someone to buzz off? That makes you the biggest jerk since Randy Moss. If you really needed someone off of a project, you weaned them off, until they feel that they've accomplished something, and you feel that you're in better shape.

We really don't have that luxury this time. This case requires a clean cut, and to someone who considers me a friend. I hate having to do this.

Scratch that, let me rephrase it: I HATE having to do this.
One of the things I try to pride myself on as a person is that I'm a good friend, I'm a protector, and I try to help people who are hurting, whether emotionally or whatever. I don't turn my back on people. I don't like hurting people... it's against my nature. And yet, I know that this is exactly what I'm going to be doing here. Sure, I can tell myself it's for the best, that people with higher rank than me have said it's for the best, but I still can't help myself. I made the decision to do this, and I'm putting a production before a person.

I feel like I'm betraying something inside me. I've only really ended a friendship once before, and the feeling was more than mutual. In this case, though, I feel like doing this will sever a friendship line I spent most of the year building. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what's going to happen, because I'm betraying the other party. I'm stabbing him in the back, in a way.

That's what I feel like. A Traitor. And that's a word I never wanted to describe myself with.