Hello, Hi, and Howdy!

Welcome dear readers, to the first installment of the Critter Collection, an interview series where I ask creators about their experiences with being othered, excluded, or feeling not quite like a human, and the ways in which that has influenced their art.

Fisher

To begin the interview: what would you like to be called today? What are your pronouns? And what hex code would you like to have for your name?

Tabbie

Hi, this is Tabbie aka TabbieDearest!! I'm she/her and my hex code is #bdadef which seems like it isn't a hex code color at first glance but it is I promise!

Fisher

Welcome to the critter collection Tabbie!

Now then, could you talk a bit about your experiences with being othered?

Tabbie

I guess I've always felt more othered than otherwise? Whether it's in terms of race, sexuality, gender, I've always felt like I don't quite fit neatly into any label that exists to try to make things make more sense for people. Not that I've felt entirely like a person at any point in my life, either! I've found it really sad to be on the "outside" historically, but lately I've come to appreciate the freedom in it.

Fisher

That makes sense. It's easy to spend a lot of life being on the outside looking in for all sorts of reasons

How do some of those feelings end up in the things you make?

Tabbie

I think a lot about what my motivations are for making art and while I do think that examinations of different kinds of love is primarily what I like to make, my own perspective from the outside is what tends to inform how that goes. In terms of race, for example, Goldthread in Cuscuta is very very purposefully a Racial Other that is exploited over and over again for that reason. My friend who designed her picked up what I was putting down and gave her a dress heavily influenced by chut thai which I still really love!

Fisher

There's a lot of ways to talk about being othered. Are there things you still want to say and discuss about these feelings? Or maybe a project you have in mind for such a thing?

Tabbie

I think the next one will delve more into otherness even more explicitly than my other VNs actually! There's a lot of funky stuff you can do with omegaverse as a concept to talk about gender and sexuality and I'm gonna pull that thread as hard as I can hahaha.

(Just a note from Fisher - This interview Happened on February 27th 2026, right before the Omegaverse Jam hosted by me and mutual friend Porksbun)

Fisher

Now, for my final question that will be in every critter collection:

Do you have any words for the readers who may be experiencing similar feelings of being othered?

Tabbie

There's a lot of freedom to be had outside of the box. Inside dogs don't get to roam as they please, so even if it's cold and scary out there, sometimes that feels better than being leashed. Watch any movie about dogs, it's not inside dogs that the scrappy protagonist ever gets the advice they need from. It's an outside dog. That may not be true though don't fact check me

Outside dogs can offer perspective, and that's the most important thing in art I think!

Fisher

Thank you for that! I think there really is a lot to be gained from outside dogs as well-

Now that I've asked the questions I'll be asking everyone I interview for the Critter Collection, I'd like to take some to pick your brain a bit further.

Tabbie

yippee!

Fisher

Regarding the first question -

Do you feel like there were ways you felt othered more often? Ways that it felt like it hurt worse to be othered?

What is your experience with being not quite like a person like for you?

What has allowed you to appreciate the freedom that comes with being outside the boxes people may prescribe?

Tabbie

Oh I mean I grew up in South Carolina, so expressing any kind of difference (even if I had processed it for myself) in gender or sexuality was a bit out of the question haha. So I'd say it was race that othered me most often. I'm mixed, so it's not like I can find any real solace with either sides of my heritage either. When I was in Thailand, my mom would get to relish all the people saying "look at the pretty mixed kids!" while I was discovering, first hand after looking forward to finally meeting my "people", that they didn't see me as one of them either. And then white people are...... you know......

Not being quite a person has been complex for me. It was probably primarily the autism for me, but there hasn't been a time that I can remember in which I wasn't performing or lying or wearing a mask. The mask is the metaphor I use most often, I think. I tend to mirror people really heavily in order to navigate social situations, so I tend to see that every copy of Tabbie is personalized hahaha. I've had a lot of different identities and masks and Tabbie is the first one that feels purely of my own creation, something whittled down very slowly with time and care and lots of trial and error. It's a mask that I've had on my face for so long now that my skin has grown over it and veins run through it. At this point, I've bonded with so many people and to such a degree that I can't peel Tabbie off of my face any longer and ironically, I find some freedom in that option to take off this mask and start over with another one being gone now. I still feel the thing underneath the mask, the thing that makes its mouth open and speak, but functionally, I am Tabbie and I hope to always be.

I like to watch out for people. I was kind of raised to do so, so it's a need I've always had and having an "outside" perspective has always allowed me to offer people I love an alternate path they hadn't considered or were too afraid to begin to consider. I spend a lot of time pointing things out that seems like common sense to my normal (by comparison, at least) wife while she points out things I couldn't see from the ouside too. That and, to be a bit vulnerable, being outside means that if an inside person disappoints you or hurts you, then that could be as par for the course as you'd like to consider it. You can always simply leave as an outsider. You have freedom that they do not.

Omg for the first question I didn't even TALK about how nuts it was growing up as an autistic kid that was considered the "normal" one, that is a whole ass other can of worms fjaksjlfd

Fisher

I mean, you're free to talk about that now!

Tabbie

It was weird!!! My sister needed a lot of care to "catch up" with people in her grade due to her own autism while my autism didn't present itself as heavily so I was able to mask well enough to get by. I got the normal Asian (even the white one grew up in Thailand, funny enough) parent deal with an added layer of "you need to be successful enough to take care of your sister" so my own needs got pushed down a bit. Whatever wrongness I felt had to be suppressed because that was what I was supposed to do and it's taken a lot of work to undo some of that. Like I said, I really do enjoy looking out for people even if it was what I was groomed for. It's something that I choose to do now and there's power in making that choice for me.

It's a bit dark, but I was so fucking stressed that a small childhood memory I jump to is trying to hold my breath because I heard people die when they stop breathing and I saw Non-breath oblige by PinocchioP as an adult and sobbed lmao Non-breath Oblige

Fisher

Aight that's kinda wild on both fronts.

Tabbie

I was sooo normal I was such a normal child I was sooooo normal

Fisher

But uh, I too have an intense feeling of the mask btw. I feel like fisher is the first time I've really tried and had some success in being without it. But I do also mirror super heavily so I get it. I even take on accents and speech patterns to some degree when talking to people and masking, it's wild.

Tabbie

gosh yeah I've felt like such a fraud when I realize I'm doing it, I've always had to temper it by being like "hey this is kind of your thing and this is what allows you to make friends with people so well and after that you get to let your guard down a bit so chill"

Fisher

The woes of the turbo mirroring

Also for the disappointment component - this has made me randomly think of the memes shown for intense and difficult roguelikes that go along the lines of "Don't like what you see? You can just leave! Hit the bricks!"

Tabbie

There is always some sense of safety in having an easy escape route, even if there is a sadness to operating in that way in life

Fisher

I'm curious about your focus on Love, by the way. Why do you think it's that it's the area you focus on so often?

Tabbie

I didn't feel much love, or much of anything, growing up so I guess there's a novelty to it? There's all kinds of love and it's interesting to think about all the different kinds and how they intersect and how they can go well or poorly. I find myself trying to categorize and qualify how exactly I feel about people in my life a lot so it's something that's on my mind a lot. Do I have a crush on them? Is this romantic, sexual? Is this admiration? Is it a desire to nuture or protect? Is it platonic? Is it familial? In the long run, it's something to figure out as you go along, but I always find myself wanting to "figure it out" so I can figure out how to behave correctly and get a good grade in social interaction, which is a totally normal thing to want.

All the kinds of ways people can love each other and how that love can be perverted or twisted or stomped or saved are endlessly fascinating to me and what I always tend to go to when I write because I make food for myself.

Fisher

You know, that makes a lot of sense. And also I've definitely seen a lot of people who want good grades on social interaction because how totally… normal, that desire is. There's a lot of people who have felt lacking in their treatment, out there

Tabbie

Oh shit, that is normal, isn't it. Shit. Damn that IS normal

Fisher

Normal for autistic people in the modern day which is sad tbh

Besides omegaverse otherness, are there more kinds of otherness you are growing more interested in exploring as you make more vns and games?

Tabbie

I'm channeling a lot of transness and this feeling of being someone that should "lead" while wanting quite the opposite into the omegaverse VN, but I think I'd like to explore the disconnect from the greater "trans community" that I have a bit more. I'm not someone that always knew they wanted to be a woman, nor was it an absolute need. I could've gotten by just fine. I wanted to become a woman for my own wants. It was better for me personally. I'm better like this. I feel like that's something that doesn't get talked about very much from what I can see, like the only thing that came close that I've read was Welcome Back, Alice by Shuzo Oshimi.
There's a scene where someone who existed as a boy returns to school after a break as entirely feminine and when confronted, they say "Nothing is wrong with me. I'm better like this." and I'd never felt so seen by anything in my entire life, so I want to make something that reflects that feeling

Fisher

That makes sense to me tbh.

There is some media that expresses what you're talking about, some media that talks about how forcefemme hypno kink porn genuinely led to them transitioning, but it's something you have to search for

But I think this answers my interview questions pretty nicely.

And remember folks - it's better to be an outside dog!

Tabbie

Outside dogs get to piss wherever they want!!! Wherever!!!