I am cross-posting my resource list for the Noemata zine here.
Alas, if you lose this post, you must endure the long journey of searching for where else* I have linked them.
(*The updated description of the zine page.)
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Conlanging
PolyGlot: Spoken Language Construction Kit - Free software for keeping track of multiple conlang projects in a single database.
Quothalinguist - The personal website of Jessie Peterson, the professor of linguistics who created the well-known Conlang Year question set.
Dedalvs and The Art of Language Invention - The personal websites of David J. Peterson, also an accomplished linguist.
Language Construction Kit v.2 - A website that walks you through various aspects of conlanging. See also: How to create a language by Pablo David Flores and Essays on Language Design by Rick Morneau.
Neography.info - A website dedicated to constructed writing systems.
The World’s Writing Systems - A link hub for web pages about different writing systems.
The Language Creation Society - The designated conlanging society, with a number of hosted conlangs sites and educational pages available.
ConWorkshop - A combination wiki-and-forum; this is a solid resource for looking at conlanging projects made by others, as well as sharing your own.
Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney
The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building by David J. Peterson
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Conworlding / SpecBio
Speculative Evolution JCINK - A general-purpose forum focused on speculative evolution, including their surrounding conworld projects.
The CBB - A forum for conlanging and conworlding, as well as discussion of natlangs.
After Man: A Zoology of the Future by Dougal Dixon
Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future by Dougal Dixon
All Tomorrows: The Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man by C.M. Kosemen
Alien Worlds by Wall to Wall Media
Future Evolution by Peter Ward
Scavengers Reign by Titmouse
Runaway to the Stars by Jay Eaton
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow
The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel
An African History of Africa by Zeinab Badawi
A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters by Henry Gee
i think a lot of folks can relate when i say that it took so long to fully accept my alterhumanity because of the fear i was somehow a fraud-- faking this experience because my then-current identity felt... incomplete. no parts of my alterhumanity fit neatly in boxes. i can't tie any one identity to any one origin. i can't say with certainty whether they're voluntary or involuntary. i don't even fully know if my 'types are kintypes, hearttypes, etc. i'm sure there are plenty of microlabels that i can stack up to fit my experience into neat boxes, but for me that's more alienating than just. not labeling it at all.
that being said, i'm going to try to describe my identity's origin in this post, as thoroughly as i can manage. and if even one being comes across this post and feels that their identity is a little more real, i've done what i am setting out to do.
my first (and second, and third, etc.) encounters with alterhumanity
i grew up on youtube. i became a furry after watching a dance competition in 6th grade, and i hid my first fursona from everyone. i've always been a bit private.
so, it isn't surprising when i found myself watching anthony padilla's "i spent a day with" episodes on otherkin and therianthropy. my thoughts didn't go much beyond "people like that exist, that's cool" because surely if i was one of them i would know that by now.
i did some more research, if you can call it that, by watching more youtube videos by therians and otherkin. i had the thought that if i was one, i'd be a cat. i've always wanted to be a cat. but of course, i thought i would know already if i was.
the order of events gets a little blurry from here on. i bought a choker and pretended it was a collar. i got my hands on a half-mask and wore it secretly, in my room. i listened to "grow wings" and "change forms" subliminals. i made ears and tails and paws out of foam and fur and pretended it was for halloween. i watched and posted tiktoks, and cleared my search history. i read tumblr blogs, and cleared my search history. i briefly tried tulpamancy-- or that's what it was called at the time. i found daemonism. i tired quadrobics. i jumped on the trampoline to pretend i was flying. i remembered, and forgot, and remembered, and forgot.
alterhumanity was there in the bad parts too. gender dysphoria? i'm a tree. feeling invisible? well, i have wings and they don't. can't talk? try growling. try curling up like a cat and wait for the feeling to pass. the character of sophie foster got me through covid, because my experiences were hers. my pain was easier to handle when i could become something, or someone, else.
and so it went. i kept dipping my toes into alterhumanity, only to pull them right back out. my first venture into actually labeling myself didn't happen until 2024, at least 5 years after i first was introduced to the community. i tried out voidpunk, because it fit a little bit with the "coping" part of my alterhumanity. but it still didn't feel quite right.
months after that, finally, i accepted myself. i used the term otherflicker to describe my varied feeling of connection (which i later discovered is quite normal among otherkin. they just don't label it, instead saying things like "main" or "strongest" 'types). i now use the term cambikin to describe the same experience. but i'm not going to get caught up on taking you through all the labels i've ever prescribed myself here. this is about origin. i'll take it one 'type at a time.
i am a cat, and i think i always have been.
a domestic cat, probably with a tortoiseshell coat, if i had to be specific. i remember pretending to be one growing up, licking my arms because that's what cats do, crawling around on the floor and rubbing my face on furniture. even now, i still act like one around my parents-- laying in my mom's lap and waiting for head scratches, or making weird noises when i don't want to talk. i think this identity is very behavior-based, and it mostly comes from fascination and mimicry. i've never had a pet cat, but i would watch documentaries about their behavior. i wanted to come back as one in my next life. they were me, and i was them, though i didn't use those words. in this way, i guess it is a psychological identity, except for that bit about lives. i don't think i've ever fully believed in reincarnation. i believe in the universe, i guess. i believe my atoms were once stardust and then a million other things before i got here. and i do think some of my atoms are going to be a cat (i guess that's a bit physical, too).
"i am a tree" <- the name of my playlist before i knew i was a tree
the cat is probably the simplest of my identities to explain. it follows the very common story of "i've been like this since forever". my coastal redwood identity is not like that. i practically worshiped a specific redwood tree in elementary school. on tumblr i would curiously search for plantkin and feel a deep ache in my chest. i called myself a tree when i realized i was nonbinary because trees don't have human genders. they're neutral, solid, reliable. my brief period of tulpamancy included an oddly introspective moment where i reached into the back of my head and asked what's your name? my brain whispered one word, the only word i don't think i willed it to say during that time: tree. ...at this moment, it's hard to imagine i ever wasn't a coastal redwood. they're such an integral part of me. a hearthome and a hearttype and a phytantype all in one. a mix of psychological and spiritual, voluntary and involuntary, a coping strategy and something integral to myself. something like, i chose to be the tree i always was.
i'm an odd dragon.
and well, that's the beauty in draconity. there is no dragon that isn't odd. but what i mean is that i'm more wild. i'm more dragon therian than dragonkin. which is odd, because my only explanation for this identity is through the wings of fire series i obsessed over growing up, in which the dragons are definitely more intelligent. so i hesitate to call this 'type fully psychological because i cannot explain it. unique to most of my other identities, i've learned the most about being a dragon through shifts and meditation. i have fur instead of scales, four legs, two wings, and deer-like patterns and antlers. i live in the forest-- alone, most likely-- and sleep in caves and trees and by the rivers. my behavior is a little catlike, but fully dragon: i snap my teeth and growl and fly high high over the forests. if i had to give it a spiritual explanation, it would be something like... a parallel life. or a life from long, long ago before earth as we know it. but i can't say it was entirely involuntary-- i just wanted to have something, when i first accepted my alterhumanity. and a dragon seemed to fit.
i have been through many changes as a winged person.
i think this identity started when i gave my characters wings, right when it was all getting bad. 2021-2022 might've been the worst my mental health has ever been. towards the beginning, i was spiraling. towards the end, recovering (although one could question my methods of doing so). somewhere in there, i became all-too aware of being ignored. i felt invisible. like nobody could really see me. so as any normal human person would do (joke), i started to imagine that i had wings on my back. big, beautiful black wings. and nobody else could see them because nobody else can see me. but that didn't matter because i had wings. i was more than what they thought of me. i got really into poetry and the universe and being part of all of it. the wings were a symbol of spite, persistence, acceptance. ...then i started reading wingfics, after the worst of all that angst. i read about "avians" and preening and perching and all their customs. and it felt like me. so, i may have started with just the black wings, but it soon morphed into being an avianthrope-- a humanoid bird-like person. my wings change pattern from parrot to starling to fairywren because sometimes identity is a little voluntary and there's no one bird you have to be and that's okay. i have feathers on my arms and in my hair. i perch on things, i give people things, i would preen if i had the opportunity. i'm a male in that i like looking pretty. this identity was pretty much entirely a way to cope but it has become so much more than that.
i chose to be a fictionflickerer since before i knew what that was
i get too into stories sometimes. not in the obsessive way but in that i forget myself. i become the character. but that's an oversimplification. take my first memory of a fictionflicker, before i knew what that meant: sophie foster from keeper of the lost cities. a middle grade series that is still not finished as i am writing this. i read it in lockdown and had to remind myself that i was real every time i left my room-- experiencing shifts every time i sat down to read another chapter. but it was more than that, it was a conscious connection as much as parts were unconscious. i would think, how would sophie approach this? if sophie can do it, so can i. sophie went through the same thing. we are so similar that i am her. so yes, there was a voluntary reach. and there has been with my two flickers since then as well. a mix of oh god i am them and i choose to lean into this.
birds and birds and birds
i'm bird ambihearted. some but not all species. and it is due to being an avianthrope but it also isn't. it's also because i associate certain penguin species with my cultures, because i had three precious budgies for years, because parrots fly over my home and crows hang out on the sidewalks and birds are all around me. and i am so very attached.
in the eyes of a non-traditional daemian
when i first got into daemonism i didn't know it was considered alterhumanity, but it makes so much sense. my daemon is not very thought-out, one could say. i've never done any form finding, she's always a binturong, even her name is just dae. but she helps me move when i can't get myself to, she keeps me a little company. she brings me a little comfort. and through her, i am a binturong as well: subtle shifts, phantom limbs, the usual experience i have as a therian. but i'm not a binturong therian. dae is simply a binturong, and dae is simply me. as i am her. so i am a binturong. and as far as i know, daemonism is usually a thought exercise or a self-care practice but to me it is a lot messier. and that is fine.
we are all different and that is what alterhumanity is about, isn't it? we talk because that is worth talking about. and there is no requirements to saying you're a dragon, or a tree, or anything at all because alterhumanity is inclusivity. i hope you found value in my ramblings
There's not nearly enough talk about hearttypes, so we wanted to to get conversations rolling by making a collaborative zine about it!
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. - Otherkin Wiki
This zine will be a collection of artwork, writing and more all about being otherhearted. Whatever that means to you - both fiction and nonfiction pieces would be accepted. If you got something you wanna express about hearttypes, we'd love to hear it!
Full submission guidelines below the cut.
What Can I Submit?
Both fiction and nonfiction pieces are accepted. As long as what you have in mind fits the theme, it’ll probably be a-ok.
Off the top of our head, we’re thinking of:
Essays of your personal experiences
Short stories
Poetry
Mock advice columns
Alternative covers
Fictional advertisements
Comics
Recipes
We welcome you to think outside the box and share whatever inspires you about being otherhearted!
How to Participate
Send us an email at nova-dergs(@)proton.me with:
A name you would like the piece attributed to
Title of your submission
Any content warnings that you feel are necessary for the piece
Any social media handle or personal website you'd like linked in the contributor section
A logo or icon for the contributor section
**If you would like to stay anonymous let us know
Members of systems are welcome to submit individually or collectively. Please let us know your preference when it comes to attribution.
Once the deadline has passed, these submissions will be put into the zine and it will be posted on itch.io as a free PDF.
Submissions are due by November 15, 2026.
Submission Guidelines
Each individual may submit up to 3 works to be featured in From Within Our Hearts. Comics and multi-image works count as one piece. Individuals within a system may each submit up to 3 works. All work must be your own! Anyone caught plagiarizing or submitting AI-generated work will be barred from entering any future zines from us.
Written submissions and multi-part art entries should not exceed 10 pages. Please keep in mind the zine’s pages will be 8.5 x 11 and entries will be scaled accordingly to fit that size. We request all art submissions to be sent in either .jpg or .png file formats.
For stories that use multiple different fonts, we will do our best to preserve the general "feel" of your piece but cannot guarantee we will be able to use the exact fonts or sizes due to restrictions in what fonts we have access to, readability and overarching zine style.
Submissions Must Fit the Thematic Criteria of:
Being otherhearted / hearttype appreciation
That’s it! Go wild.
No portfolio or prior zine experience is needed to be included.
FAQ
Q: Where will the zine be hosted? What will it cost?
A: The zine will be hosted digitally on our itch.io and will be free to download.
Q: Is there a cap on total submissions to be included?
A: There is none, as long as the file doesn’t start getting too big for our computer we’ll do our best! If there are an unprecedented amount of submissions, we may have to delay the release. In the event that happens, we would communicate that through updates on our tumblr.
Q: Can I update my submission after it’s been submitted?
A: Yes you may, as long as it’s done before the submission deadline.
Q: Can I rescind my submission?
A: Yes you may, as long as it’s done before the submission deadline. This is because once we begin work on the zine, having to remove content mid-way through would throw off the formatting of everything else after. Please take this into account before submitting.
Q: Will this zine allow +18 entries?
A: No, nothing 18+ will be accepted.
Q: Can I submit already completed/published works?
A: Absolutely! It’s ok to submit past work that has been posted to your social media or website. Our only stipulation is that it cannot have been previously featured in another zine. This helps us keep each of our zines unique and distinct from others.
Q: What is your timeline for the project?
A: Our submission deadline is November 15, 2026. Our goal is to have the zine live by the end of the year. If something unforeseen happens and we are unable to make that deadline, we will post an update about it on our tumblr.
Q: I have another question!
A: Feel free to reach out to us at our email nova-dergs(@)proton.me with any other questions you have about the zine.
More people should really at least consider otherlinking to be a thing they themselves can do. The community is quiet and the tags tend to be overrun with crossposting, but I think it'd be a lot louder if people actually considered it as a genuine possibility a little more often. 'Linking is usually seen as an afterthought you tack onto the end of a list of alterhuman terms and not usually discussed too much more than that from what we can see. Which is sad because it really can be beneficial and it absolutely has a place in the broader alterhuman community.
You really want to be an animal, or your favourite character, but you know you're not? You can do that--you can just.. become them.
You have a hearttype but it feels kinda weird and it feels like you should have been that thing, but you're not? You could always 'link it if you're dysphoric about not being that thing.
You have something that was--or you thought was--a kintype, but now it's not, and you miss it? Just link it back into yourself.
You think [thing] is really cool and it'd be cool to be one? You can!
You want to incorporate an aesthetic of [thing] into your identity and it'd work best if you just became that thing? That's absolutely a thing you can do.
You think it'd be fun to identify as something other than what your body is? You can make that happen.
Being [thing] would help with something in your life? Go ahead, you can do that.
You can mold your own sense of self an identity however you see fit, and that's really cool. Honestly it comes across as a power move. You get to make your own self, no matter what came before it.
There's not nearly enough talk about hearttypes, so we wanted to to get conversations rolling by making a collaborative zine about it!
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. - Otherkin Wiki
This zine would be a collection of artwork, writing and more all about being otherhearted. Whatever that means to you - both fiction and nonfiction pieces would be accepted.
How it would work is we'd have a few month submission window and anyone could email us pieces they'd like added to the zine. No formal applications or try-outs. If you got something you wanna express about hearttypes, we'd love to hear it!
If you'd be interested in either reading or submitting to this potential zine please comment, reblog, like, or tell us in the tags!
If we get enough interest, we'll create a second post with more detailed instructions on how to submit pieces and deadlines.
I've never seen an ask game for hearttypes specifically so I wanted to make one! I did my best! Be sure to specify which hearttype you want to know about if they have more than one!
1. What about you and your hearttype are similar?
2. What about you and your hearttype are different?
3. How did you discover (and confirm) your hearttype?
4. Any headcanons/theories about your hearttype?
5. Any habits you picked up from your hearttype, or any you had before you even knew about it?
6. Any hearttypes that developed from a different thing like a synpath or copinglink?
7. Anything you personally don't like about your hearttype? Could be personality, something that happened/happens to them, how they function, etc.
8. Are you a "deep longing to be", "deep admiration and empathy for", "ideal self", "should have been", and/or other experience 'hearted person?
9. Would you take your hearttype's physical body? Anything you'd change?
10. Do you experience shifts of your hearttypes?
11. Any hearttypes you're questioning at the moment?
12. Do you ever feel desires/urges or emotions that are due to or influenced by your hearttype?
13. What was the hearttype that took you the longest to confirm?
14. What's a song that reminds you of your hearttype?
I was digging through some old art and I'd like to have this on my blog. Been feeling this again.
I'd like to properly credit the lyrics, but the song is from a musician who's no longer in otherconnect and I'm not sure they'd be okay with their music publicly linked here.
Kind of annoying and unfair to otherhearted folk the way kff are just offered otherhearted as a sacrifice to get them to stop calling themselves kin.
Ok yes some of them may be otherhearted but the issue with kff is that it is entirely a fandom thing. If they are also otherhearted that is its own thing, and its like, fine to teach them about it in case they are alterhuman in this way and its good for more people to know what otherhearts are but it feels like sometimes it is just being used as a shield and a sacrifice for kin when the fandomy relationship with the character kff have is Also Not what Otherhearted Is. Just because its identify with rather than as doesnt make it not a deeply held important identity.
Otherheart is not a fandom thing either it is not just normal relating to a character either it is not stanning a character either it is not rping as a character either. Can we not just feed it to the fandom people as a sacrificial lamb ay-yuh
an otherhearted experience i want to talk about: “just otherhearted”
(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.
all this to say: to be otherhearted is to have unique experiences, to have a deeply rooted and meaningful identity, to have complex relationships with your hearttype beyond “just” anything. my otherhearted identities make me who i am. there is no ‘me’ without cows, without dogs, without thunderstorms. and i love being otherhearted<3
Reblogging this here because after some testing, this can in fact be used to make the otherhearted tag decently usable! Just add -#otherkin and -#therian and you'll actually get otherhearted posts. (You might want to toss -"intro" in there too, depending.)
Gonna be plural on main for a second, but cofronting for us always feels so intimate. Or maybe we make it intimate just by virtue of who we are and what we do? Noel curls around me like the world's biggest sentient chair, and it feels like her soul's touching mine. I can feel the memory of her teeth and wings like my own, while still feeling her scales up against my back and the way she rumbles in amusement, the closeness of it shaking my bones, as I write this. Never more than when I'm cofronting do I have to stop and admire that if we're made of anything, her and I are made of the same stuff. I'm hers in a way that transcends anything else, and in the same way she's mine. If soulmates exist, we're each other's.
Cofronting in this way for us is like being wrapped in the warmest hug you can possibly imagine, but so much better. In discussions where my singlet friends are first learning about plurality and specifically my plurality, they often ask: isn't it exhausting getting no privacy? How can you handle people always being with you? And I also have to ask in return: isn't it lonely? How can you stand living without even one person who'll ever understand exactly what you're feeling, who's always there for you? And we both kind of shrug at each other and accept that our lived experiences are polar opposites in some significant ways. This closeness with another person just isn't something I could imagine ever going without. It'd be like losing all my senses and my family all at the same time. It'd be devastating and life-changing in ways I couldn't comprehend and frankly don't want to. And it'd be so, so fucking lonely.
And for that, I am infinitely glad to be multiple and a part of a system. I wouldn't want life any other way.
The experience of linking is really interesting. It’s sometimes a sort of manual awakening of aspects of the selves. Now that I’ve “awakened” stars within me, even without shifting towards the star dragon vaguelink, my present motif are all now dreams and stars.
