Rosestuff

Coming from one of the longest serving members of the Free Company, I feel I'm uniquely gifted to have witnessed every iteration, change of hands, change of plans, and its ups and downs. Despite not being the leader anymore and surrendering my right to make judgments or insist on policy I still feel I should at least throw in my own observations, thoughts and feelings about what is ostensibly my home.

	External Observations

On Balmung, there are currently no less than a dozen active brothel Free Companies. We weren’t even strictly the first, though we were the first to take it to such a professional level. Even to this day there’s still a slight murmur about us, it isn’t difficult coaxing a positive word about the Free Company from the majority of the server. However, even to this day, we do suffer from specific issues related to the nature of the FC in different ways.

	For starters we were and still are the most prolific Free Company of our type. As such, we cannot escape the spotlight. Ever. Because of this, there are a fair number of whispers, rumors and murmurs about our level of drama, the number of fights we have and what we may or may not do behind closed doors. From personal experience, keeping my ear to the ground on both my linkshells and the RPC, tolerance to ERP has dropped rather significantly due to how prolific it’s become and we’re no exception despite our storied history.

On a more personal note, I feel the more that we’ve focused on simply being a brothel, the more we’ve backslid into just being “another ERP FC” (Which is a claim that is not entirely unwarranted). It really doesn’t matter if rumors or true or not—people will still gobble them up, chew it and spit it out for the world to see and therein lies the problem of out image upkeep. Not so much the fact that we’re an ERP FC (that fact has been accepted by Balmung LOOOONG ago) so much as the relative maturity and professionalism we exhibit.



	Internal Observations

	We have entirely too many people. Way too many fresh faces with very little interaction with the FC itself which is problematic under normal circumstances, but our current turnover rate is so high that keeping track of a stable storyline (let alone people’s names) causes friction which leads to stress which leads to people exploding, leaving and causing a scene. Even today, I look away to talk to U’vera on Skype and come back to find two more people just join out of the blue.

	Second to this is that we also seem to have an unusually large number of applicants to the Thorn position, which sort of seems like a gateway into the FC. Which isn’t a bad thing, but as of June 26, we’re at about a 50/50 split between courtesans and Thorns. Which is patently absurd since we don’t actually do anything with Thorns despite filler work. There have been many ideas so far as to what to do with them, but nothing concrete has ever been set down. As a personal note? I do feel like the position is kind of abused for the sake of joining an ERP FC.

Thirdly—it seems we need to mature up as a group. There’s been entirely too much drama, irritation and clique-y behavior going on and that’s coming from me: a perpetrator and a victim of it. Many times when there was a kerfuffle that resulted in a member leaving, the furor could be amounted to “Well don’t let the door hit ya, bitch!” and in the most recent case with Mika “Should I make one just to spite her?”. Regardless of the events that led up to this (Most of the instances of people needed to leave I agree with) this behavior is pretty fucking disgusting. These people were family not seconds prior regardless of how stupid they’ve been.

The issue of the staggering amount of ERP that’s flowing through our halls is a total given. I mean, we are what we are, right? But on a personal note it feels as though we’ve become some sort of Darknest or F-List with the sole focus of the storied Rose to really just be something of a fluid-stained pillow.



Expectations

	External

	We honestly need more involvement with the community. At one point we were involved with running the major Halloween party. Hosting an afterparty for the annual Ul’dahn Ball (Which attracts so many people the GMs get involved) untold number of wedding parties and receptions. We were an active member of the community rather than a passive one that waited for people to come to the house. From the top of my head we were involved with:

	Gilded Pony
	Crescent
	Heartwood Trading Company
	Internal
	Artifice and Invention (AIM)
	The Wandering Tonberry (Berry)
	Knights of Eld (KaTet)
	Harbingers of Dawn (HoD)

These in addition to the multitudinous of public server events where we’ve made our appearance. I feel like our image has slipped since sort of holing up in our estate and rolling around in the hay.

	Internal

	We need to cap recruitment. We have more active members than the average free company has members in their entirety. I’m not saying a large family is a bad one, but we’re getting to the point where it’s getting to be untenable with the current officer count, the lack of a solidified rank structure with goals and purposes for each role and an ability to fit everyone somewhere that will benefit the FC as a whole. Even with all the people we have now, nobody really wants to do anything. It’s a sit on the back burner and watch how things turns out while getting your rocks off in the meantime. There were 25 people at the beach party and the enthusiasm was low enough to figure someone was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

We need more than sex—a storyline. Something. Anything. Bind these people together with a common string. As it stands now we’re a number of handfuls of whores loosely affiliated under one central government. A slut republic. Despite the fact that anyone is well within their right to turn their nose up at the idea that there might just be too much sluttery going on… We were, for as long as I can remember a FC that does ERP—not an ERP FC.