Cuteness

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

In Babylon 5 Zack Allen to G'kar Daffy Duck the Egyptian god of Frustration.

I recall him saying Daffy was the god of Frustration, but not a specifically Egyptian one. Regardless, I am unaware if I am, in fact, a descendant of Daffy Duck. At any rate, my supernatural nature and it's overall relationship to fear of rabbits is probably way off topic for this thread, as I am in no way cute.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Wouldn't you still need Universal to make it species neutral?

Animal cuteness probably isn't species-neutral. It's appearance vs. the dominant species (humans), which is one of the two options you can get out of unmodified Appearance. The other being appearance vs. your own kind.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Animal cuteness probably isn't species-neutral. It's appearance vs. the dominant species (humans), which is one of the two options you can get out of unmodified Appearance. The other being appearance vs. your own kind.

Mammals find juvenile characteristics cute, and most mammals have similar juvenile characteristics; large eyes, round flat-ish faces, etc.
So it's a big more encompassing that just one species.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Mammals find juvenile characteristics cute, and most mammals have similar juvenile characteristics; large eyes, round flat-ish faces, etc.
So it's a big more encompassing that just one species.

A cat, weasel, or coyote would cheerfully eat a cute little bunny.

Bill Stoddard

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

A cat, weasel, or coyote would cheerfully eat a cute little bunny.

Bill Stoddard

Many humans eat rabbits, cats, lambs, etc.
The sound of stomach growling beats the "dawwww" any day.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Many humans eat rabbits, cats, lambs, etc.

Yes, but a lot of them wouldn't kill them. One of my players likes to tell the story of being at the zoo when the tiger cubs were being fed—live rats—and a mother had brought her young children to see it, apparently not realizing what the meal would be.

Bill Stoddard

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Yes, but a lot of them wouldn't kill them. One of my players likes to tell the story of being at the zoo when the tiger cubs were being fed—live rats—and a mother had brought her young children to see it, apparently not realizing what the meal would be.

Bill Stoddard

That has far more to do with modern people being squeamish about their meat coming from formerly living animals, in my opinion.
I doubt those people would feel any differently if they saw what happens in a slaughterhouse every day.
Besides, wild animals have been known to adopt juveniles of other species even of food animals. Rarely, but it does happen.
I have no problem believing that human level intelligence mammals would exhibit similar love of the cute as we do.

[Mgellis]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I think he's trying to stat this kind of thing:


http://images.wordlesstech.com/wp-co...po-640x467.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.lemondrop...8/11/hippo.jpg

http://www.taronga.org.au/sites/defa...nda_taylor.jpg

Crazy reaction bonuses!

Yes...for many baby animals, Attractive + Pitiable = Cute, but what do you about something that is UGLY but still cute? Pitiable by itself will do the trick, I suppose, as Attractive only gives you a +1 anyway. I guess, as a few other people have said, perhaps Social Regard (Baby Animal) does the trick.

And, yes, it only goes so far...perhaps Professional Skill (Butcher) includes a bonus to Will rolls against the cuteness of baby animals? :) Bestial would include it, too, I imagine (and at IQ 5 or less, such things probably do not even matter).

[Mgellis]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I think he's trying to stat this kind of thing:


http://images.wordlesstech.com/wp-co...po-640x467.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.lemondrop...8/11/hippo.jpg

http://www.taronga.org.au/sites/defa...nda_taylor.jpg

Crazy reaction bonuses!

Yes...for many baby animals, Attractive + Pitiable = Cute, but what do you about something that is UGLY but still cute? Pitiable by itself will do the trick, I suppose, as Attractive only gives you a +1 anyway. I guess, as a few other people have said, perhaps Social Regard (Baby Animal) does the trick.

And, yes, it only goes so far...perhaps Professional Skill (Butcher) includes a bonus to Will rolls against the cuteness of baby animals? :) Bestial would include it, too, I imagine (and at IQ 5 or less, such things probably do not even matter).

I wonder if you can buy Pitiable 2 [10], which would give you a +6 instead of +3? This would cover "so adorable I think my head will explode." (I think one of my cats has this. It would certainly explain certain things...like why we haven't sold her to someone else for chewing/clawing up some of the things she has chewed/clawed up.) Any thoughts on this?

Maybe "Ugly but so cute that there is no negative reaction modifier" [-1] is a fair quirk...you're ugly enough to be noticed, but something about you is cute enough that people don't fear you or dislike you or feel especially repulsed by you. This, combined with Pitiable, makes you almost as cute as a kitten.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Mgellis

Yes...for many baby animals, Attractive + Pitiable = Cute, but what do you about something that is UGLY but still cute? Pitiable by itself will do the trick, I suppose, as Attractive only gives you a +1 anyway. I guess, as a few other people have said, perhaps Social Regard (Baby Animal) does the trick.

And, yes, it only goes so far...perhaps Professional Skill (Butcher) includes a bonus to Will rolls against the cuteness of baby animals? :) Bestial would include it, too, I imagine (and at IQ 5 or less, such things probably do not even matter).

What does cute mean as far as required actions of viewers really mean?
Most people would not endanger themselves for a cute animal not otherwise considered a socially recognized pet species like cats and dogs for westerners.
Wild animals have been observed rescuing juveniles of other species even when they have to go out of their way to do it. Honestly, how often are wild animals in a situation to care about cute?


I doubt butchers are immune to cute. They just partition their jobs from daily life, like how most refuse to give food animals names in effect de-animalizing them... to search for a similar term to dehumanizing that takes place in war.
Just because the anti-cute modifiers overwhelm the cute ones doesn't make the cute ones go away.