As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a staffer. To me, being a staffer was better than being President of the United States. Even before I was first nominated for MLT be the next Cid's Knight, I knew I wanted to be a part of them. It was there that I knew that I belonged. To me, it meant being somebody in the forums that were full of nobodies. They weren't like anybody else. I mean, they did whatever they wanted. They double posted in front of newbies and nobody ever gave them a warning. In EoEO when they spammed more than anyone, nobody ever banned them.

theundeadhero. tuh. tuh went around people's profiles and a few other places for his friend Psychotic who was the boss over everybody in the user notes section. Psychotic might have responded slow, but it was only because he didn't have to respond to anybody. At first, my friends loved that I got recruited to staff. Pure Quin14, who was another FFIX fan, had tried to get on staff since he joined, and he liked that I got in. He always said IX fans were underappreciated. And Cz was happy after he found out that several staffers were British, just as he was. To Cz, it was the answer to his prayers.

I was the luckiest guy in the world. I could go anywhere. I could do anything. I knew everybody and everybody knew me. But it wasn't too long before my friends changed their minds. For them, the staff position was supposed to be a light-hearted thing, but for me, it was dead serious. People like Quin could never understand, but I was a part of something. I belonged. I was treated like a grown-up. Every day I was learning to score. Quin was always pissed off. He was pissed that he had to follow the rules. He was pissed that he got warnings for spamming. He was pissed that the user notes were replaced with visitor messages. But after a while, he was mostly pissed that I stayed on staff. He said they were elitists and that I was an elitist. He said I was going to get corrupted. I used to say I was only trying to be a good role model, but he knew better. He knew what went on in the staff forum and, every once in a while, usually after he got his load on, I had to listen to him flaming me. But by then, I didn't care. No matter how much flaming I took, I wouldn't listen to what he said. I don't think I even heard him. The way I saw it, everybody has to get flamed some time.

That was it. No more remarks from Cid's Knights. No more snarky attitude from oldbies. In fact, no more snark from anybody. How could I go back to General Chat after that and discuss peeing in the shower and soda vs. pop.

Hundreds of members depended on Psychotic and he got Ciddies votes from every one of them. It was tribute, just like back in user notes, except they were doing out in the open forums. All they got from Psychotic was protection from other staffers looking to profile rape or joke ban them. That's what it's all about. That's what the people who report posts can never understand, that what Psychotic and his underlings does is offer protection for people who can't get help from the staff. They're like the forums staff for rulebreakers.

People looked at me differently. They knew I was with somebody. I didn't have to wait in line in the Signature Service thread. The best sig artists knew who I was with, and they'd come online right away, no matter how many people had been begging for sigs. I was taken care of first. Nobody reported my posts anymore, even though I was insulting members openly. After three years as a member, I was getting more Ciddies than most of the oldbies around the forums. I had more Ciddies than I could name. I had it all. One day some of the newbies at the time voted for LunarWeaver to get his first Ciddie. It was out of respect.

Long story short, I betrayed Psychotic. I support Del Murder.