Introduction

Final Fantasy XIV (FF14) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Square Enix. The game was originally released in 2010 but received a major overhaul in 2013 (due to receiving a ton of negative feedback) with the release of its second version, A Realm Reborn. Since then, the game has continued to receive regular updates and expansions with the latest being Endwalker. In the game, players create their own unique characters and embark on an epic adventure in the world of Eorzea. The game features a rich and immersive storyline, filled with memorable characters and epic battles. Players can choose from a variety of different races and classes, each with its own unique playstyle and abilities. Stereotypical to the genre, the game's available races consist of elves, humans and all their variations, e.g. humans with cat ears or humans with bunny ears. Another race, which this drama is all about, are the Lalafells - I'll call them Lala(s) from now on:

Despite being small in stature and childlike in appearance, they are known to possess great intelligence and are skilled in various crafts. In game, there is the occasional joke about their tiny appearance but they are mostly treated seriously. None of this really matters because they are the token 'cute-smol-child' race and are known to only be played by fujos, freaks and total losers - so the only people interested in this game to begin with. Being a Lala is already quite difficult as you get regularly bullied in dungeons and raids and everyone thinks you're a libertarian loser but recently square enix added a new cosmetic designed for them and things got heated. You see, there are in game houses you can buy in the game which you can decorate with furniture according to your liking. Lala players have been very vocal to the developers about wanting more Lala specific furnitures and recently their wishes were granted by adding a new chair:

The Chair

As you can see, this is essentially a chair made for adults and definitely not aimed at children.

Drama

Official Forum

The thread about this - Please Change/Rename Lalafell "Lifter"... - has reached 60 pages of pure undistilled seethe from Lala players starting from the OP:

As the title says, with patch 6.35 we received some new housing items! One of them being... the lalafell lifter. We have been begging for lalafell furniture for the longest time, especially after visiting Tomra and seeing all of the lalafellin sized furniture. We haven't had an official lalafell furniture since the step stool, so we were excited to finally have something that wasn't huge or way over our heads!

...Except this piece of furniture is not what we were hoping for. It's insulting and a lot of my friends think the same. It looks like a toddler's high chair. It doesn't even look like a proper chair with a proper backing and arms. It's forced to stay a pure white color and the dyable area is the part that makes it look like a furniture chair.

We've been hoping for lalafell beds, tables, anything... but this? The chair is great as a high chair in general. But not when most descriptions in a lot of languages note that it's specifically good for children and toddlers.

Please reconsider changing the design/default white wood to a more neutral look. Or rename it to anything else that doesn't allude to lalafell-specific item. I don't want to even imagine going to people's in game houses or RP venues just to be told to go sit in the child's corner

As the forum allows you to pick your character as your profile picture, you can easily tell which players play a Lala and which aren't playing one. I'll cherry pick some examples but feel free to browse yourself:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/479512-Change-Remove-Lalafell-Lifter-...?p=6206166&viewfull=1#post6206166

This is... unbelievable levels of uncool. Is THIS what they thought we wanted, really? How about giving us furniture where things like scowtools and high chairs aren't required at all? This is awful, absolutely awful

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/479512-Change-Remove-Lalafell-Lifter-...?p=6206195&viewfull=1#post6206195

Seems pretty funny. Think you guys are just upset over literally nothing, as par for the 'internet terminally online on a forum' course. Doesn't affect me in the slightest, and shouldn't for you either.

1. No "terminally online" excuses when clearly a number of people don't like it/don't want it. In fact, you have way more posts than I do here.

1. It effects those of us who love decorating their houses/apartments and have been yearning for lalafell furniture instead of having to glitch things through the floor to appear smaller or just having to deal with oversized items. We're not asking for anything major, just something that doesn't look like a baby highchair... This is a feedback forum so we're providing our feedback

Twitter

https://x.com/_Virus_Kid_/status/1633523596004843535

The addition of this chair and the amount of people genuinely angry at it is one of the funniest things I've seen in recent memory. The forum thread is 27 pages (and ongoing) of discourse.

https://x.com/redditFFXIV/status/1633218767634464768

"They added a pink baby chair for Lalafells..." by DrForester

Reddit

r/Hobbydrama

Two posts about this in the weekly discussion thread with moderately more information as my post but no real drama:

[Hobby Scuffles] Week of March 13, 2023

[Hobby Scuffles] Week of March 6, 2023

r/FFXIV

A lot of posts about this topic with most of them being obvious jokes and shitposts but there is the occasional argument in there:

Please lala's these are not the same!

My Lala re-education room

All "outrage" aside, the new lala chair is nice. I can actually eat comfortably at my own table now.

Get in the chair, now.

Trigger Warning - Chairs :O

Some drama in these threads:

The Lala Chair

They added a pink baby chair for Lalafells...

Poll for Lalafels Players

There are multiple other subreddits discussing this but I won't bother linking them here as it's mostly (rightfully) pooping on people who care about this but I'll leave some links to some insane youtubers discussing this topic with some of their videos reaching up to 100k views lol:

YouTube

Final Fantasy XIV Lalafell Drama | Xeno Reacts [20min, 75k views, 800+ comments]

Huge FFXIV Drama: Pyromancer vs Xeno [1 FRICKING HOUR, 100k Views, 1800+ comments]

Asmongold reacts to Pyromancer RESPONDS to the FFXIV Lalafell Drama [30min, 140k Views, 1300+ comments]

TLDR for everything up to now: FFXIV released a highchair for the short race. A few people who play as the short race got angry. Xeno reacted to the issue finding it ridiculous and hilarious. Pyro saw Xeno's reaction and blew up for some reason with weird takes. Everyone laughed at Pyro.

Conclusion

Yes, I know everyone involved in this needs to die but feel free to discuss the game and this drama in the comments. I like the game but quit at the release of Endwalker because I felt it was a huge downgrade to Shadowbringers (unironically kino game) and I felt I was wasting my time despite never aprticiaptaitng in high end raids and stuff and only erp with huge bunny 10inch+ futas haha im joking of course but FRICK i ahve to hrry and I have to hurry now FRICK IM already late ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh CARP PIN