#everything hearted

Reminder that alterhumans of any kind with psychosis are no less real in their identities than an alterhuman without psychosis. Having a psychotic disorder doesn't discredit your personal identity in any way, even if it does stem from a delusion. It doesn't matter where your identity comes from.

So. Shoutout to: Systems formed from or influenced by psychosis. Otherkin who are nonhuman due to delusions. Endels of any kind. Otherlinkers who have 'linked something to help with their psychosis or because of it. Otherhearteds who have a hearttype that relates to their psychosis. Physical nonhumans who are this way due to delusions. Fictionfolk and factfolk who have their identities influenced/formed by psychosis. Alterhumans who get euphoria from their psychotic symptoms. Alterhumans who are alterhuman because they're psychotic. Alterhumans who just happen to have a psychotic disorder and those two things don't intersect.

I've made silly beam emojis (intended for discord but. Yknow, free for whatever). Beams to fire at your friends to turn them alterhuman or.. Something! Some of these are a little crudely done but this is because I'm being silly with it. Enjoy, creatures!

In order, we have:

Alterhuman, using the alterhuman flag colours (by gh0stspxce) + the alt key.

Otherkin, using the nonhuman unity flag colours + the elven star.

Therian, using the nonhuman unity flag colours + the theta delta.

Otherhearted, using one of the otherhearted flags and the diamond heart symbol.

Otherlink, using one of the otherlink flags (darkened for visibility) and the diamond link symbol.

Plural, using one of the many plural pride flags and the plural rings.

Soulbond(er), using one of the soulbonding flags and the symbol by lunar-solstice-plur.

Soulbond(er)s who are in a relationship with their soulbond(er)s, using the same flag and the symbol by lunar-solstice-plur.

Terrorpunk, using the terrorpunk symbol and its colours by. Us!

We've seen some posts around like this for other subsections of the community, so we figured we'd make a 'heartedness one. This isn’t extensive, nor does it cover the entirety of the hearted experience–but it should serve as a general rundown of the community. This post has a PDF version that's going to be archived on our Neocities.

Terminology

Otherhearted:  – Synonyms: “Otherkith”A person with a strong connection to a species, character or other entity, usually defined by identifying "with", but not "as". More on what exactly this means later.

Concepthearted: A person whose otherhearted identity relates to concepts. (Emotionhearted, songhearted, timehearted, etc).

Facthearted: A person whose otherhearted identity relates to real, this-world people, places or individual animals. (Hearttypes including specific oceans, public figures/celebrities, specific animals, etc).

Fictionhearted: A person whose otherhearted identity relates to fictional characters, species or places. (Nightfuryhearted, Mariohearted, etc).

Planthearted: A person whose otherhearted identity relates to plants. (Treehearted, sunflowerhearted, etc).

Theriohearted: – Synonyms: “Animalhearted” A person whose otherhearted identity relates to animals. (Wolfhearted, bearhearted, etc).

Hearttype: – Synonyms: “Kithtype”, debatably “Synpath”The entity that an otherhearted individual identifies with.

–hearted: A suffix used to denote your specific hearttype. For example, a person whose hearttype is wolves would be wolfhearted.

Hearthome: A hearthome is a place–be it real or fictional–that a person has a deep connection with, often to the point of considering it a “home” regardless of if they’ve never been there in their current life/body.

Synpath: A thing someone identifies with and not as, used similarly to "hearttype", though there's nuances separating the two terms depending on who you ask.

Symbols

The otherhearted symbol or diamond heart was proposed by tumblr user aestherians in 2017, chosen by the community using a poll. The design features a ring interlocking with a heart, which converges into a diamond shape in the middle.

What Does It Really Mean?

“Identifying With”

“Identifying with” is a broad category that’s understandably, quite confusing. This explanation aims to make it a little more understandable, but this absolutely doesn’t cover the entirety of what “identifying with” can mean. “It” in the following points refers to a hearttype or potential hearttype, whatever that may be.

You feel like you “should have” been it, but you aren’t.

You feel like you “could have” been it, but you aren’t.

It is a part of you even if it’s not entirely “you”.

You feel like you will be it in a future life.

You believe that in another life, you are/have been it, but right now you’re not.

Your sense of self wouldn’t be the same without it as a part of your life.

It’s your ideal self, or a representation of it.

You feel at home around it or imagining being around it.

It’s the form of your daemon.

You believe it’s a parallel life of yours, but you’re not it right now.

It influences your identity in some way.

It’s a special interest or hyperfixation that feels tied to your sense of self.

You feel like it is a part of the same family as you.

You feel like it is, in a way, kind of almost you, but a little “to the left”--too distinct to be you in a literal sense.

You feel like you belong with it, but you’re not literally one of them.

It is a part of your identity in some way other than you being literally them.

A lot of the above points relate in similar ways to hearthome identities, but reworded to incorporate “it” as a place instead. Additional points for hearthomes include:

Feeling like you should be there.

Feeling like you were there once, and it’s left a mark on your identity.

That place holding a special place within your identity.

Feeling a “pull” toward that place.

FAQ:

How is this different from otherkin/therians?

A therian/otherkin identifies as their kintype, whereas an otherhearted person doesn’t, and will have a different type of connection to them. Think of the difference as “I am [kintype]” vs “[hearttype] is a part of my identity”. However, there’s plenty of nuance, grey areas between them, and these identities can even shift and become each other over time, so this is a general statement not accounting for those nuances.

Both things are still alterhuman, and no identity is “lesser” than the other–hearttypes can have just as much influence over a person’s identity as kintypes can.

Can hearttypes be chosen/voluntary?

Yes! There’s a divide between otherkin and otherlinkers in this way, but this hasn’t ever really been a need for the ‘hearted community to define or draw a line between.

What things can be a hearttype?

Anything! Generally, if you are currently experiencing it, the rule is that it can happen. You’re experiencing it, after all!

Hearttypes can be (but aren’t limited to): 

Animals, mythical creatures, plants, fungi

Oceans, forests, off-planet locations, buildings, fictional locations, other natural formations like rivers and mountains

People, real or fictional

Emotions, colours, aesthetics, sounds, seasons, songs

Objects, robots, machines, artworks

Book series, tv shows, movies, games

Do otherhearted people shift?

Otherhearted people absolutely can experience shifts, as can any other alterhuman and even non-alterhumans. Shifting isn’t a thing exclusive to otherkin/therians.

Is this different from a special interest or hyperfixation?

For some people, yes! We’ve seen many people (including ourselves) who experience these things with a lot of overlap. For others, no–they’re distinct things even if there might be some similarities.

Hearttypes can be the same thing as your special interest/hyperfixation, or they might not be. Sometimes hearttypes form spins/hyperfixes and sometimes it’s the other way around! It’s really up to the individual to decide whether these things are hearttypes or not–there’s no set default for this.

Further Reading:

Alterhuman Archive’s Otherhearted Section: https://www.zotero.org/groups/4956615/altarchive/collections/R9URWR67 A compilation of heartedness related writings from across the community.

Otherhearted-Culture-Is: https://otherhearted-culture-is.tumblr.com/ A culture-is blog for otherhearteds that’s turned into more of a general purpose otherheartedness blog.

do you have a definition of otherhearted? or a lived experience with it?

thank you for taking the time to read that. kudos :]

- @starlight-chickens

From the otherkin wiki:

Otherhearted describes a person who has a strong fundamental connection to a species or character which impacts their core sense of self. This is most commonly described in terms of identifying with a being as opposed to identifying as one, although this is not always the case.

Now.. This is pretty vague! That's a large part of the term in all honesty. It's meant to be broad, because things can be important and integral to your identity in many, many ways. We've written on heartedness before with some examples of what that can mean, here's a link to that post.

I'll copy a part of it to this post though. These are some examples of what could be an otherhearted experience!

You feel like you “should have” been it, but you aren’t. You feel like you “could have” been it, but you aren’t. It is a part of you even if it’s not entirely “you”. You feel like you will be it in a future life. You believe that in another life, you are/have been it, but right now you’re not. Your sense of self wouldn’t be the same without it as a part of your life. It’s your ideal self, or a representation of it. You feel at home around it or imagining being around it. It’s the form of your daemon. You believe it’s a parallel life of yours, but you’re not it right now. It influences your identity in some way. It’s a special interest or hyperfixation that feels tied to your sense of self. You feel like it is a part of the same family as you. You feel like it is, in a way, kind of almost you, but a little “to the left”--too distinct to be you in a literal sense. You feel like you belong with it, but you’re not literally one of them. It is a part of your identity in some way other than you being literally them.

Are these the only ways to be 'hearted? No. Are these experiences always something someone would describe as an otherhearted identity? Also no. What counts or doesn't count is ultimately up to you, as long as the potential hearttype is important to your own identity, it can count.

Our collective system is otherhearted. Some stuff we experience due to that:

We're birdhearted, because birds are our main special interest and we form a lot of our identity and sense of self around them. We're also a corvid therian, and that extends to birds of all kind having a sort of "this is just like me" feeling to them on top of that.

We're planthearted, because we feel that plants are intertwined with our daily life and very being to a point where we see them as family or something close. This actually might have started years ago (or have been made more strong feeling) by our psychologist recommending that we get plants for our room so we'd have to open the curtains in the morning to help it grow. She recommended this to us during a really dark time in our life and we feel like we owe us even getting out of that situation at least in part, to the plants that we had motivation to look after when we couldn't care for ourselves.

I, Del, personally am snakehearted and dragonhearted. These identities go hand in hand in a way? Snakes feel like my cousins, symbolically. They're often seen as slippery, sly guys out to con and scheme and take foes down with venom--but they're also in truth, just animals doing what their nature drives them to do. On a deeper level due to my fictive identity, I feel so intertwined with the narrative around snakes here that they're a core part of who I am and how I feel about myself. Dragons, on the other hand, feel like an extension of the snakehearted identity, with added cultural significance from my home world.

Aside from our own personal experiences, we can recommend @otherhearted-culture-is as a good blog to learn about 'heartedness from. They've got good stuff over there!

Only you get to decide what does and doesn't apply to your identity. We haven't experienced anything like what you're describing ourselves, but we see no need to avoid classifying it as otherheartedness, at least to test out how you feel about labelling it as such. "Heavily impacts identity" can be vague and mean a whole lot of things, but in my opinion, feeling such a strong draw toward characters beyond what you'd normally experience sounds like it could absolutely be classified as a hearttype.

A few in there are geared toward all alterhumans in general, that's fine, but... Posts specifically only about therians, otherkin or fully nonhuman identities without so much as a mention of heartedness don't belong in the otherhearted tags. Therian/otherkin specific posts don't belong in the otherlinking tags either. It's so hard to find anything related to being otherhearted or otherlinking because it's almost all content that only explicitly relates to therians or otherkin. It really looks like they sometimes just slap the smaller tags on there for reach.

It doesn't get your therian posts reach though, because as far as I'm aware, hearted people and otherlinkers follow the tags for posts relating to those specific experiences. Sure, people can be more than one thing and there are definitely therians and otherkin following those tags, that's fine, but it's not why those people follow them. Flooding the hearted and otherlink tags with otherkin posts really only makes it impossible to see anything from other individuals who are otherhearted or otherlinkers. The people who want to see your posts will be following the otherkin or therian tags.

You don't need to tag in different community tags for reach, this is tumblr where tags do actually matter because they're the primary way of finding posts. There's no algorithm at all if you don't use the "for you" page. And when you're putting therian and otherkin only posts in tags that are for much, much smaller communities like otherhearted people and otherlinkers.... It becomes impossible to keep those communities present here.

I don't know if there's separate tags that otherhearted people and otherlinkers use that aren't flodded with otherkin-only posts but if there is I haven't been able to find it because the only post we can even find recently in the hearted tags thats actually about heartedness is one we made today.

We've went on about how the term "alterhuman" isn't just for otherkin content before. We're sad the tag for it has less variety than the community really encompasses. Yes, otherkin are alterhuman and have the right to post there--no one is saying they don't--but a lot of the times people post "alterhumanity is about being an animal and no one knows" or something when it's definitely not always the case. Alterhuman isn't the same as nonhuman. I want to see more diversity and acknowledgement that there can be other alterhuman identities aside from identifying as an animal. As an umbrella term, alterhuman encompasses a lot more than nonhumanity and I don't like that even the hearted tags are covered in unrelated material.

Sure thing!

So, for some context... Any of our collective identities feel like they're a "filter" the body puts over us--alterhuman related or not. This can be colours we like, things we enjoy, alterhuman identities, gender presentation, etc. The reason it's a filter and not, say, a blanket or something like that, is because you can still see through it. The filter of the body might make people more inclined to present masc or like the colour blue, but it's still a seethrough filter in the end, and you can see what's under it. You can go against the grain, it's just what the body tends to make you lean towards in your identity, moreso than you normally would.

Our collective hearttypes are almost inseparable from the experience of a collective special interest--that's the best way I can describe it. We have an intense special interest in birds, to the point that they're on our mind often enough that this integral part of our life is ingrained into the filter. If you're a member of this system, you like birds--honestly, I don't think we've ever met a system member who doesn't have an intense love and familiarity toward them. If anything, the bird part of the filter is the strongest because we've never seen anyone go against it. Plants on the other hand are at least an interest for everyone, but it's not as intense across the board--though it's prominent enough that we're happy labelling it as a hearttype. Space as a hearthome wavers depending on who's at front, but as with plants, it's constant enough that we count it.

As for kintypes, it's more of the same. If anything, it feels like these are the kintypes of our body as opposed to us individually. The body is Hunter and a dragon and Jonathan Sims and a member of the corvus genus. Not really physically (depending on fronter and what state of psychosis we're in), but as if it were its own person. We front, and when we do, we experience the phantom shifts, the mental shifts, the instincts, and the general vibes of being otherkin. Though it doesn't come from ourselves as individuals, it's tied to the body itself. Our kintypes are felt strongly across the board, with some people closer to certain ones than others, but I don't think we have anyone in our system for any of our collective kintypes who doesn't identify as them.

Our archetrope being The Villain is more... Complex? There's a filter there again, sure--but it's not the trope itself. It's the sort of personality and ideals filter of the drive to be ourselves even if it upsets others, the feeling of just how many villain fictives we have in this brain, the relatability of us to a lot of villains stories and concepts (especially because of how queer and disabled rep tends to be so common in villain types)--but that's not quite enough to describe the whole identity. That's just the filter part. Our archetropal identity is something we partially choose ourselves both to be and pursue as a collective because of the filter, in a terrorpunk way. We WILL be ourselves, we WILL do it without remorse, and we WILL display traits that are often (wrongfully) associated with villainy like queerness, punk fashion, alterhumanity and disability. And sometimes, we absolutely will be treated as if we're horrible, evil or trying to cause harm by doing these things--so it kind of gets wrapped up in a little bundle of reclaiming all of that under a "fuck yeah, if you're gonna treat me as the villain, I'll be one" label. And we aim to be more and more radically open and proud and to be more and more "villainous" from the perspective of exclusionists. We'll be their antagonist if that's what they think we're doing.