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
hai!!! i wanted 2 ask what being otherhearted means for u? Im autistic and ive read the meaning of otherhearted like a thousand times yet i still dont understand, what identifying WITH means (literal thinking)
i wanted to ask how you figured out u were other hearted? /genq
hi!!! i totally get that, im autistic and struggle with label definitions too sometimes. lemme try to explain. i have talked about my otherhearted identities before, too, so if you wanna read more you can check these out :)
(i’m so sorry this got so long and i sort of got carried away. my bad, i like talking about my hearttypes! lol)
honestly, although “identifying with something” is the most common definition i see of otherheartedness, i actually relate much more to the having a strong connection definition (although both are valid ways of being otherhearted).
for me, being otherhearted is the deep connections i have with things that affect my sense of self. i sometimes describe it as the things that make me who i am without literally being what i am. i have described before how my hearttypes are so important to me that i feel in a way they live in my heart. i have so much love and affection for them, they belong in me. if you removed them from me, there would be no ‘me’ anymore; it’d be like removing my heart. i would be fundamentally different.
you CAN also identify as your hearttypes as well as with them, though. i am cowhearted, doghearted, and thunderstormhearted. i am also dogkin/a dog therian. dogs are so integral to who i am that they are both a hearttype (because they are so important to me that they cannot be separated from who i am) as well as a kintype (i literally am a dog).
deeper into my otherheart identities and how i started identifying as them below the cut!
cows are the first hearttype i discovered. i’m not really sure how that happened; there came a time about 6 years ago when i started becoming much more interested in cows. i am not sure why it happened so suddenly. i think i started seeing cow print clothes and cow accessories and i thought they were cute so i started wearing them. at which point others started associating me with cows, joking about me being a cow, giving me cow-related gifts, etc. and i loved that. i realized how much i really loved cows. and when i discovered the term otherhearted, i sort of just knew that’s what i was. cows had become so important to who i am that there was no separating them from me anymore. i knew i never really felt like i was one; just that i belonged among them, was drawn to them, felt deeply for them, and felt sort of like they were friends/family to me. me dressing up as a cow always felt like wearing a costume, whereas me dressing up as a dog felt like me dressing up as myself (much like this!).
i wonder frequently if my cow hearttype is, in fact, a paratype, and related to my farm dog kintype. i have always been deeply connected to farms (them being one of my hearthomes) due to being a farm dog therian. i believe i was meant to have a cow herd, i was meant to live among cows, i was meant to see them like family because i was their herding dog and they were my friends. like we are inherently connected. im not sure if this is actually true, but i think its a strong theory on why i might be cowhearted.
i find my otherheartedness related to dogs is based in me having been obsessed with them since i was very young. dogs are my autistic special interest, which i believe is the reason why i am so connected to them that they became a hearttype. with dogs, i feel the most “identifying with” them. i identify with them because i relate to them, i see myself in them, i could be represented by a dog. but i feel that is likely because i identify as one, too.
and lastly: thunderstorms <3 this was the most recent hearttype i discovered. i have always deeply loved thunderstorms, i have always been drawn to them. rain-less, windy thunderstorms are my favourite weather and have been for a very, very long time. whenever it storms, i immediately go outside. if its not raining i will go run around in the grass and feel the wind in my hair and hear the thunder and feel so absolutely invigorated, so at home. if its raining, i’ll bring my blanket and go sit on my porch and just watch the storm. for a while, i questioned if i was thunderstormkin. i felt so deeply connected to them and drawn to them. but i felt more like i belonged in them than actually being one myself. they felt like my home.
thunderstorms are definitely a paratype as well; they cannot be separated from my church grim identity. they go hand in hand. i feel like thunderstorms are where i am meant to live as a church grim. whenever i am watching or in a storm, i am instantly shifted into my church grim type. i’m not sure why, but i feel like a big black cryptid dog stalking the sides of the highway at night, no one else around, in the middle of a storm. i feel like the dog standing still in the middle of the graveyard, staring at you. like an omen.
(if you wanna hear more about me being thunderstormhearted, click on these!)
anyway i hope that helped you understand! i truly am sorry it got so long,,, if you made it all the way here then thank you for reading and being interested in these little parts of me that i hold so dearly :) feel free to ask more if you don’t understand!
edit: also! here’s a really helpful post (imo) about otherheartedness, with a bunch of examples on how folks could feel connected “with” their type!
HELLO can you perchance— if you haven’t already — talk about your church grim type? i’m super curious :O
hi!!!! i have a little before but always happy to talk about myself more 🥰🥰 i love talking about my types!
to me, being a church grim actually feels surprisingly like a regular dog. before i knew what a church grim was, i assumed that’s what this type was—just some sort of strange but regular dog, like a black gsd or something.
i think the way it feels different to me is mainly through association; being a church grim comes with a heavy association with religious themes (for me these manifest as dark or sacrilegious themes, akin to religious trauma) and for me personally an association with thunderstorms & windy, dark weather. this feels like the kind of weather i was meant for, as a church grim. i also feel an association with protecting graveyards, and a love-hate relationship with my religious trauma—i was made to protect these people, but they are the same people who sacrificed me for themselves. in my very being it is coded to love them, to guide them, but i can’t help from hating them for their selfishness and their cruelty. it’s the religious trauma :)
while i often use images and visuals that are super edgy when representing my church grim type, it actually feels very vulnerable to me. i feel scared, anxious, unstable as a church grim, especially when i have shifts. i think it’s because i’ve been dismissed (or maybe freed) from my post as a church grim. in folklore, we are supposed to be tied to one church/graveyard and protect the souls of the dead, guiding them to the afterlife. i do not do that anymore. and i think a lot of the vulnerability comes from being a creature with a purpose who is not fulfilling that purpose.
anyway,, i do enjoy being a church grim! it’s not all sad and scary! i do also enjoy being thunderstormhearted because of my church grim kin :)
these are some photos i feel really connected to as a church grim (i took the first 2!!)
you might have a post about it somewhere that i haven't seen but whats your experience with being thunderstormhearted? that sound so so cool! :]
rahh thank you, i love being thunderstormhearted but i rarely get to talk about it :]
thunderstorms are a paratype for me, as they are intrinsically linked to my church grim theriotype. i feel at home in thunderstorms, like i belong in them. they always give me intense church grim shifts when i get to be outdoors during one (especially if it’s dry/no rain and windy—the BEST weather ever).
i don’t know how to describe it other than i feel connected to them due to being a church grim. they’re my home, what i was meant to belong in. sometimes i used to wonder if perhaps i was thunderstormkin, but it feels much more like i should be in a thunderstorm rather than i am one. it feels like they belong in my heart :)
i do have a couple other posts talking about it if you wanna hear more ! (here and here)
thinking recently that thunderstorms are likely a paratype of mine.
i have always been deeply affected by thunderstorms and wind storms in a way that feels like kin. i don’t know how to describe it besides a strong bond, and a connection. i love them so dearly, i feel almost one with them.
considered maybe i was thunderstormkin. but i don’t FEEL LIKE a thunderstorm, i feel like i should be in one. i feel like they belong in my heart. i feel like i should be right back in my big black dog church grim form, wind howling around me. in the grass with my hair blowing around my face, looking up into the thundering clouds, i will shift instantly. every time.
maybe i’m thunderstorm hearted. i very well could be. but it’s definitely a paratype related to being a church grim.
thunderstorms are INVIGORATING as a church grim i must GO OUTSIDE even if it’s raining (i do not like rain. but i will put up with it) and RUN AROUND and BARK at the SKY!!!!!! thunderstorms fill me with a kind of homesick energy that i never ever have otherwise and every minute i spend indoors during a thunderstorm is a minute WASTED!!!!
oohhh have you considered calling thunderstorms a hearthome in a way? related to your church grimm type?
hi!!! yes!!!! really, i consider thunderstorms to be both a hearttype and a hearthome.
(honestly, i consider all my hearthomes to be a form of otherheartedness, as they feel very very similar to me)
i do still consider thunderstorms distinctly otherhearted for me, in a way slightly different to them also being a hearthome, in that it feels sort of like (this may sound crazy),,,, an ‘entity’? like it’s communicating with me? like we’re friends, almost? at least acquaintances. it’s not like actually sentient, but it is a thing that i exist next to as well as within.
i have called my thunderstormheartedness (crazy long word omg) one of my hearthomes in the past, before i sort of realized it was also another hearttype of mine
