Is there anything more adorable than a baby bird who’s intimidated by bubbles? Pixar‘s betting not, and even the briefest of glances at the image above tells you they have it figured out. Meet Piper, star of the animated short of the same name that will run in theaters with Finding Dory. Even when they do a sequel, Pixar finds a way to launch an original property at the same time.

Piper is—as the name may suggest—a far-from-rowdy sandpiper who must learn to overcome the fear of water, with the aid of a young crab. Even though the name suggests a female character, the bird does not speak human, and director Alan Barillaro very much plays the pronoun game when discussing his film with Entertainment Weekly:

The story then grew, as Piper became a tale of a child learning from a parent about the way of the food chain — and a child learning from another child … “It’s the kid at the playground feeling,” says Barillaro. “You fall down and you feel so small, but you look and see someone even smaller than you brush themselves off and tackle something, and learn from that in your own way. It was important to me to stay in the kid world and see the world from Piper’s eyes, and not be from the human perspective.”

Notice all the ways they’ve avoided using “he” or “she” in the text. Slick. So for now, it seems Piper can be whatever gender you want the bird to be. If, as seems to us inevitable, people want more and start buying Piper plush toys in droves…we’ll just have to “sea” what happens.

Are you ready to pay for Piper? Can you seriously resist those big eyes? Tell us if we’re crazy in comments below.

And for those looking for a few more of those Pixar feels, why not check out our chat with the Inside Out cast?

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HT: Entertainment Weekly
Image Credit: Pixar