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.
I'm not trying to start discourse but very very very gentle reminder that daemonism is not inherently plural and acting like it is does a disservice to the community as a whole. it's a venn diagram with plurality, NOT a subsection.
this is not to discourage plural daemons and daemians from the community ofc, you're always welcome, but I'm getting a little sick of people considering this unique identity with it's own history and community as 'tulpmancy lite' or 'a fancy term for median system' or 'just another type of created plurality'.
if you experience daemonism as plurality that's genuinely awesome! :D But please be aware that daemonism is not plural for everyone and the assumption that it is can come off as rude or exclusionary to your singlet community members is all.
#daemonism#ngl i feel like the alterhuman community has no clue what daemonism is#which tbf is likely because the daemian community keeps to our own spaces a lot and there isn't many resources#but it is very... bold... how many people will confidently give incorrect or incomplete descriptions of it#despite never having engaged with the community#if someone's not part of the community then it's not their place to talk about what it is y'know?#but i think that's where the bulk of these misconceptions come from#some daemonism is plural but daemonism is and always has been its own practice first and foremost#with its own culture and decades of history!
this is kinda what inspired me to make this post actually, the amount of plurality blogs that will confidently spread misinformation on daemonism because they know jack shit about it and assume it's "basically a median system" is INCREDIBLY frustrating 😭
I have no clue what daemonism is so I'm just going to say that my opinion is "I have never heard of it, do you have any text-based resources I can read?"
Adding my 2cents that daemonism as a practice and a community literally predates modern tulpamancy. TheDaemonForum was made in 2002 and modern tulpamancy communities didn't emerge until around 2012.
Like others have said, daemonism is its own unique community with its own culture and practices. Applying whatever the current Popular Plural/System Community Culture, Practices, and Expectations onto us completely ignores what daemonism is and disregards our unique history, philosophy, and perspectives.
"Can we go back to being a dragon?" your inner child asks. "Please turn us back into a dragon," your inner child begs, again and again. You're so tired, you want to hang up the human suit and flex your claws, your wings, your tail and feel the scrape of your scales against furniture.
Your rational, adult self can only look back forlornly, whispering sweet nothings and "It's okay, it's okay". Because you know that "We've never actually been a dragon" isn't something your inner child is able to swallow at all. You've tried telling them before, and all they could say back is "I don't understand".
It goes nowhere and wait for sleep to take you so you can have the energy to ignore not being a dragon again.
Do people nowadays know about +Anima? It's basically The Therian Manga and one of my favorite series of all time. If you are a therian, particularly if you have childhood trauma or feelings of social alienation, please read it. It's very cathartic, and there's a really diverse range of animals represented. Content warnings for non-graphic depictions of child abuse and human trafficking, but the overall series is really wholesome and positive in a bittersweet sort of way :)
There was only ever one print run that ended almost 20 years ago now, but you can read the whole thing online and since it's an obscure series used copies still go for the original price! It's only ten volumes so it doesn't take long to read, and buying the whole set is feasible if you prefer physical media.
