#cowhearted

(for @skylargoesbark alterhuman new years posts!)

i know a lot of folks tend to think of otherhearted as “just having a connection”, or like the lesser version of kin, and it will never not get on my nerves when i see someone (trying to correct someone else) say “therian/kin isn’t a connection!! if you just have a connection, that’s just otherhearted!!” or something similar.

it’s the word ‘just’ that always gets me. it’s just a connection. it’s not kin; it’s just otherhearted.

it feels reductive. it feels like dumbing down what it truly means to be otherhearted.

personally my hearttypes aren’t just anything. they’re a whole slew of complexities and emotions that are integral to who i am as a being. they make me who i am, and i wouldn’t be the same without them.

and i know people tend to think it’s not a big deal, and even if i were to say “imagine if someone said ‘it’s just a kintype’ about one of your kintypes”, many of you probably wouldn’t care. but my issue is that to otherhearted creatures, specifically, it happens over and over and over again. and if i ever point it out, suggest a correction, i sometimes get dogpiled on as if im the bad guy; op didnt mean it that way, dogbite, don’t be so sensitive. you’re overreacting.

but i suppose that’s the problem, isn’t it? that they didn’t mean to. that reducing our identity in such a way is so common, so familiar that people don’t even think about it when they do it. that in their subconscious, otherheart will only ever be “just a connection”, and nothing more. even if they don’t mean it that way. it still stings a little even if it wasn’t intentional.

Heyo guys!!! Soo, I wanted to just make a list of my kintypes, my hearttypes, and the animals I'm kinsidering!!! So, here goes nothing!!

Kintypes:

Draft horse, belgian malinois, fallow deer, reindeer, red fox

Hearttypes:

Corvids, otters, orcas, doberman, gsd, pigeons, bumblebees

Linktypes:

Selkie

Kinsidering:

Dragon

I love cows

Aliens abduct cows

folks tend to think hearted just means your favourite animal or an animal you really really like. and it can be that for some. but it can be so much deeper. for me it’s so much deeper.

cows are a part of me. they’re a part of who i am. not my brain or my soul or my body, the way my theriotypes are. but part of my heart. which is why i love the term “hearttype” so, so much.

i want people in my life to see cows or cow-related things and think of me. i want to be associated with cows in everyone’s minds. not because i AM a cow, the way i’m associated with dogs because i’m a dog, but because cows are a part of me. when my friends see cow-print trinkets or cow figurines and the first thing they do is think i would like it, it makes me SO euphoric.

of course, i still am cowhearted. even if sometimes folks make wrong assumptions about what that means. that’ll never stop me from using a term that describes me and my experiences. i think for me they’re also partially a paratype, and i connect with them a lot on the level of being a farm dog. when i think about my life as a farm dog i think about cows. i think i had a herd. i loved them.

LITERALLY OMG,,,, MOO !!!!! 🐄 those fuckers are so important to me i love them

cow plushie my friend gave me today for my birthday :))) i named him melman

(my birthday was 3 months ago but we haven’t seen each other since then)