#alterhuman archive

[who-is-page]

*ringing a cowbell* The Alterhuman Archive now has unlimited storage space thanks to Orion covering the cost for an upgrade after we maxed out our space, so send us links to your work or any works you love and appreciate that you want linked to the Zotero.

[nova-dracomon]

Hey! So I'm on a mission to make sure the alterhuman/non-human/otherkin/and so many others/ communities are properly represented. I'm a snow leopard kin and voidkin myself and know that there are a lot of misconceptions about us, a long with just not much information on some certain topics about our communities. With all of that being said, if you were to see more writing about our communities, what do you think needs to be mentioned more often?

Thank you for asking! We are actually staff at the Alterhuman Archive and are always looking for a chance to bring up topics we'd like to see discussed more!

The first thing that comes to mind is everything and anything from fictionfolk. The archive's fictionfolk section is a fraction of what the therian and otherkin sections are. We believe this is due to how stigmatized being fictionfolk has been in the alterhuman communities and we 100% get it. However, especially as the times are changing and folks are becoming more accepting we'd love to see more fictionfolk be willing share their experiences. It is so so important to leave a trace, evidence that we exist and what our lives are like.

Having essays, artwork, zines and journals to point to helps us all collectively feel less alone and becomes more open-minded.

We would also love to see more otherhearted, hearthome and otherlink (biased) discussions and writings. We have some pieces archived for each of those experiences, but a lot of the time it's from only a handful of authors so the sample sizes are small. The more folks we have talking about how they experience them the richer our resources will be.

Also, in general, if you have an unusual kintype or experience alterhumanity in a unique way we want to hear about it!

Hortense: I always thought I was the only Ga'Hoole owl, but the more I open up about myself, the more I discover I'm not alone. When we share our experiences, we're extending a talon to others. It shows what's out there and what's possible. It gives courage to others to do the same.

[who-is-page]

Last night I submitted what was functionally a grant app to get the Alterhuman Archive's storage costs covered for next year. We're comparatively a small project to what other folks were likely submitting--we have just shy of 2,000 items in our collection, which is huge for alterhumans, but would be peanuts for something like a queer archive, for instance--but I'm hoping that plays in our favor, since the costs are also relatively small.

I'm under no illusions and know that it's unlikely we'll get it, but I figure it doesn't hurt to at least try. The worst they can do is say, "no thank you," and that's okay. But if we do get it... In 2027 I might re-apply for 2028 with additional fund requests to also start converting some of the works into physical media / into publicly accessible typesets for people to print and bind themselves for more reliable storage or in more easily accessible epub formats. I know how to do both, they're just tremendously costly in terms of time and (for bookbinding) supplies. So we'll just have to see where things go!

[who-is-page]

The post on archival stuff reminds me that now that I have a job again, I need to get back to my typesetting project for the Alterhuman Archive to try and bind it into physical books. Because by mid-2026 I might have enough saved for the new 11x17-capable printer I'd need for it. Which means I need to start by figuring out a format and organization method for over a thousand very different documents, and start transferring everything over to a document (or several).

[who-is-page]

CoHost Closure & Hurricane Helene/Milton Updates

[Cross-posted from my Patreon]

Social media platform CoHost, which started in 2022, announced Sept. 10th that it would be closing its doors by the end of 2024. Per the staff team's post, CoHost will go into read-only mode on October 1st, and the team will make their best efforts to keep the lights on until the end of the year.

Although not universally well-known, the site was beloved by its members and had a thriving alterhuman community. Because of this, my system has been scouring the tags for public essays to preserve and add to the Alterhuman Archive. So far we've completed looking through #otherkin; all archivists are collectively still working on getting everything summarized, tagged, and mirrored through the Wayback Machine. We've also got some new folks on the Alterhuman Archive team to help with the effort, including Sivaasonikaan, Rudy Cantor, The Dragonheart Collective, and the Draconic Wizard Workshop. Huzzah!

The one problem we're running into is that CoHost disabled new member accounts shortly after its announcement. My system, as far as I'm aware, are the only ones out of the lot of us who had a CoHost log-in. This has slowed down the effort somewhat. I'm focusing on just grabbing what I can from the tags, and then chucking its links into the collective work pile that anyone can work on (unless the work is marked as 18+, it seems). Not an ideal situation, but we're making do. If you have a CoHost piece you want to make sure ends up archived, please send it our way!

Our efforts to archive CoHost (and to work on everything else that we mentioned in the last post) have also been a little hampered thanks to back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton. My town was devastated by both in rapid succession, and I've been without power for a majority of the month. Because of Milton, a large portion of my city is now without Internet access as well, as a large amount of cell towers completely toppled in the storm. Thankfully, my family evacuated and we're all okay-- unfortunately, my job stayed open the morning and afternoon of the day that the hurricane was set to make landfall, having had me scheduled to come in, and calling out of that shift is likely to come with termination (albeit when, I couldn't say; this job has been known to wait up until 363 days after an infraction to terminate or write someone up). Job hunting will shift my plans around quite a bit and losing this job will postpone my degree by a while, unless I can graduate before I lose access to this job's tuition assistance. So we'll have to play these upcoming few months by ear, and I'm going to keep my eyes locked forward as I apply for better positions prior to my formal termination.