(10-30-2015, 07:54 AM)Kellach Woods Wrote: Welcome to FFXIV, where people roleplay the stereotype so often that they ruin it for everyone else!
This, pretty much. People treat lalafell like children because so many of them (player characters, not NPC's) act like children. Even Gus isn't really an example of a "serious" lalafell. While he is a good example of an adult lalafell, even his character is hard to take seriously when he's prone to lie and exaggerate, obsessed with spooky stuff, and literally every single line of dialogue that comes out of his mouth is either something about pumpkins, something about "coitus," something about "alpha males," or "All requests must be submitted in writing." When that's the staple people think of for "serious" lalafells on the server, it's no wonder people may not take them seriously, and it's no wonder people won't take your lalafell seriously if that's what you're trying to emulate.
I've also seen people actually playing lalafells as children (often of other races), and many of them don't clearly emote that their character actually is a child to everyone they're role-playing with. Even if they are doing a good job of it, you can't include the fact that your character is a child in every single emote without it getting repetitive and tiresome. So when people see a lalafell acting like a child--because, unbeknownst to them, it actually is a child--that's just more fuel to the fire of the stereotype.
But in general, most people will treat most characters on a case by case basis (and if they don't and that bothers you, is that really someone you want to be role-playing with, anyway?) So if you find the proverbial "everyone" isn't taking your lalafell seriously, rather than wondering "What are other people doing wrong to make lalafell look childish?" or "What are other people doing wrong to see lalafell as children?", it may be prudent to take a look at what you're doing with your own character instead and figure out why he/she is eliciting the reactions that he/she is.
Also, I'm not sure how much this matters to anything, but while there are people who view lalafell as children OOC and let that bleed over into their role-play, there are also people who fully realize OOC that lalafell are not children, yet IC their characters still see lalafell as childlike. I think there's an important distinction to be drawn there. One is an OOC problem, one is an IC "problem."
![[Image: NCtCate.png]](http://i.imgur.com/NCtCate.png)
