Hey there. This is my first post after reading this site for a while.
I was curious about what you guys think about the idea of fluffies that don’t talk being potentially better pets.
Hugboxers either love or at least find fluffies cute so I assume that they find them tolerable as is.
But what about the rest? People that are either ambivalent or abusers. Do you think lacking the ability to talk would make fluffies more tolerable or even decent pets in your eyes?
Fluffies can be annoying and demanding but then again so are other pets sometimes so I thought that maybe it’s the baby speech that makes them so annoying to some people.
Significantly, I’d say. It would lead to people treating them more like animals with higher levels of comprehension, instead of sapient things that actively choose to do wrong.
Really, a smarty standing on your lawn and demanding your house and food is murderously rage inducing, especially after wrecking said lawn. But if they all just stood there and huffed? No demands? It would just look like an animal looking defensive.
For favoritism, it just becomes a guessing game. Why does the mare treat that one better? Maybe it’s just weak. Why do they treat “bad colored foals” so harshly? Oh, they are too different and it looks like the mare thinks something’s wrong.
Instead, they call a baby “bestest” and vocalize how much they hate their other cause of their color looking like poop. It goes from animals just being animals to them being like humans, which humans hate.
At lea yes that’s my say on it. Although baby speech probably doesn’t help considering the terrible stuff they say.
I’d say so, there definitely seems to be a mistake of intelligence placed onto Fluffies just because they can talk when in reality they’re as smart as a toddler and toddlers are idiots.
When a Fluffy openly says “I don’t like you because you’re brown” or “I’m going to assault you because my balls hurt”, then it’s hard for people not to see these actions as intentionally cruel. Whereas if Fluffies didn’t talk, then these actions would be seen as animalistic quirks and treated less severely.
I feel like if fluffies coudnt talk you would just get a dog/cat or something with alot more practical uses
Fluffys are expensive, not the fluffys themselves they are dime a dozen but the needs of a fluffy (especially in a headcannon where they whine if its not hasbio brand food, toys etc etc) can be very expensive, the only redeeming factor of a fluffy is that it can talk to you being fluffy is something many pets can fulfill and be loyal and usefull companions at the same time. fluffys can be very fickle and will go wherever give them better chances of babbehs and love. occasionally you might get a fluffy who would stay with you no matter what but i think that would be very dependent on how well they were brought up (and giving how volitile a foals upbringing can be i dont see it being very often a foal is brought up as hasbio intended. bad mummahs, abuse, bad colour bias etc etc)
Abuseboxers probably woudnt bother as much if they coudnt talk, since for many its more the emotional responce rather then the physical responce that they are looking for.
most things fluffy related can just be aswered with (depends on the headcannon) but this is what i think
Ah but they wouldn’t be able to whine! People wouldn’t know it’s their favorite unless they try it out, so already less reason to be annoyed by it. And all animals are expensive - toys, food, vet bills, etc.
People would definitely be more lenient with them if they couldn’t talk. Almost everything people hate about fluffies is tied to their ability to talk, so without it? They’re just regular animals, treated as any other pet.
so my wording wasnt great here, what i meant was in this specific headcannon, which is a headcannon where fluffys are programmed to already know what hasbio products not only look like but non brand items food or otherwise have a sour/off putting taste or smell
of course this isnt the generally accepted headcannon and is much more a rare headcannon i see from time to time, however its worth ackknowleging if we are talking price of pets, while the average domestic pet (lets just say dogs in this case) while dog food is by no means chearp you can by (usuing american brands as a example) give a dog walmart own brand dog food rather than say Purina which has a high mark up due to brand name, the dog wont turn round of say no this isnt X when a fluffy will tantrum and flat out say NU if its not sketti i aint eatin it. or in the rare instance i mentioned if its not (Hasbio sketti numnums) oh whatever they would call it.
Being able to talk is an unique feature, that enhances both empathy & cruelty.
This ability, as with us humans, is readily removed: yet it is highly unusual to do so, in both cases.
One exception is in headcanons where fluffy - bred diseases have killed off other pet species, so people have had to resort to breeding fluffy simulacra of, say, canines.
Yeah I’d think the hate would be a lot less if they didn’t talk. People have a habit of equating speech/language skills with intelligence (see everything involving AI right now) and are a lot less forgiving if they think something can understand them. Think of it this way if your dog could talk and (mostly) understand you, you’d be mad if he takes a shit on the floor after you told him not to because it seems like he’s doing it on purpose, if a regular non talking dog shit on the floor then it’s because he’s just a dumb sweet animal and that’s what they do
Fluffies often get themselves into trouble purely through the stupidity of the things they say. Plus, the ugly-cute of their voice is enough to set off the cute-aggression of even the kindest souls.
There would be less rage induced abuse. It’s the entitled whining and demanding that makes Fluffies abusable. They have the illusion of intelligence and free will (maybe not an illusion) and they choose to bully and shit outside of the box.
And while one might think that the only appeal of a Fluffy is its ability to speak, I imagine that a Fluffy that could do all the other fluffy things (draw, hug, coo, walk around, pick up stuff with its mouth or hoofs, react to TV) would be popular. That only goes for a Fluffy species that wasn’t designed to talk, not one that had it’s vocal cords ripped out.
But yeah, a Fluffy species or canon where Fluffies can’t speak isn’t really “Fluffy” unless it somehow ties into the tropes as we know them. Maybe a proto (alpha) version which couldn’t speak?
I’d be more tempted to own one if they didn’t talk - having a pet which baby-talks is too much like having a kid with an added layer of creepy, and I don’t even like regular kids. A pet which can cogitate more like a teen or adult would be better, but then it wouldn’t want to be a pet. I guess for that you need a daemon.
