My hearttypes
as per requested by @harebrainedlover, ill be writing about my hearttypes here, specifically my corvidhearted and spacehearted identities. ill go over three main topics: how i discovered them, what they mean to me, and how they affect my day-to-day life.
how i discovered my hearttypes
i have always loved crows more than any other animal. i felt drawn towards them, i related so much to them, my heart seemed to flutter any time i saw them in the wild. when i was first questioning my nonhumanity circa 2022, crows were the first thing that came to my mind. and why wouldnt they? they were extremely important to me, so the connection was undeniably there. not to mention the phantom limbs i experienced; wings, talons and feathers, although faint and infrequent, were clearly there too. so i called myself a crow hybrid, and told myself that was that. it wasnt soon after i discovered my dragon kintype though, and with that came another wave of questioning. was i really a crow? or did i just like them? calling myself a crow didnt feel as right as it had at first now that i knew i was a dragon. but then i came across a new term i hadnt heard before: otherhearted. strongly identifying with βbut not asβ a nonhuman being, character or concept. it was perfect! that was me! and so i called myself crowhearted, which eventually expanded into corvidhearted, as i discovered other corvids that evoked the same feelings in me as crows did.
more than a year later, on a random tuesday morning, i started pondering my connection to space more deeply. space has been my special interest ever since i could remember, i was looking at the stars even before i was able to form words, and it has always evoked some very strong feelings inside me. i knew space was a part of me in some way... but i didnt know how exactly. did i identify with it or did it feel like it was my home? in other words, was space a hearttype or a hearthome? in the end, as many things do, it basically came down to personal preference. i decided on the otherhearted label, and nothing has proved me wrong since, so i kept it. so that was that! very anticlimactic, i know.
what being otherhearted means to me
my two hearttypes are very different from eachother, but they both encompass the otherhearted experience in their own way. they both evoke very deep, intense feelings, and it is often difficult to put into words just how important they are to me. its a very similar experience to having a kintype, but also so different the two couldnt even begin to compare.
being corvidhearted to me means beign a part of the Corvidae family, like Corvus corax or Pica pica are. i dont identify with all the members of that family, rather just a select few whom i consider to be closer to my own identity. i see myself in them in the same way one would with a family member. i feel an ache in my chest when i think about them. when i wake up in the morning and hear the crow calls outside my window, i feel like everything is right in that moment. when im walking and see a group of magpies pecking at the ground with their beaks, i feel warmth inside me. corvids are very dear to me, we are as similar as we are different, and i would not be the same person if i didnt have them. yet, i am not a crow, or a raven, or a magpie. if i woke up tomorrow a corvid, i would feel truly happy, but not like myself. i am corvidhearted. i am not a corvid.
being spacehearted feels very different. its not a sense of familiarity, but wholeness. space makes me who i am. it is as much part of my identity as my name is. when i learn about space i feel at home, as if im learning about myself. it is a very scientific connection, if that makes sense. we are all made of stars. the iron that makes up our blood cells originates from the core of burning supernovae. our organic molecules arrived here from the surface of asteroids that hit the earth. the aminoacids from our proteins formed with the creation of our planet. all hydrogen atoms that make up the water inside our cells were created within the first five minutes of the big bang. i could go on. but to put it simply, i am space, and space makes me who i am β literally.
how my hearttypes affect my day-to-day life
being otherhearted is a bit more passive than being otherkin. i dont experience memories, instincts or behavioral shifts from my hearttypes like i do with my kintypes. there is one exception: cameo shifts. cameo shifts are shifts that dont relate to any known kintype, and can be of any kind: mental, phantom, dream, physical, envisage... specifically, i experience phantom cameo shifts from my corvid hearttype. i may get phantom wings on my back or arms, talons on my feet, feathers on my back or, very rarely, a beak. they are very brief and, as far as i can tell, dont follow any known pattern, nor are they triggered by anything in particular. they just happen. i dont get any kind of shifts from my space hearttype though; maybe because its a bit more of an abstract concept. its worth noting that i do tend to get stronger feelings from space than from corvids, so id say they both have an equal impact on my life. my hearttypes are so important to my sense of identity that if you somehow managed to remove them from myself, i wouldnt be "me" anymore. sure, i would answer to the same name and my external appearance would remain unchanged, but the most relevant part of my self βwhat some would call my soulβ would be gone.
so that would be all, i suppose. thank you for taking the time to read this. and thank you to @harebrainedlover giving me an excuse to talk about my otherheartedness! :}
