2023/06/22
Word count: ~1450
Reading time: 10-12 minutes
Language is a funny thing, huh?
In June 2018 I erroneously coined the word “cameotype” — English is my 2nd language and I’ve picked up a lot of words by just noting in which contexts they’re used and then never looking them up in the dictionary. Usually this works, sometimes it doesn’t. I thought a cameo meant an addition, something secondary, or something along those lines. When people discussed cameo-shifts, I knew they were discussing brief, temporary shifts, but it was only after coming up with this word that I realized what “cameo” actually means: A minor role.
That’s absolutely not the meaning I was going for when I made up the word “cameotype,” and I backtracked as soon as I realized my mistake. But I still needed a word to cover that concept I’d originally intended for “cameotype” to cover — to quote my original post: “You know those characters, animals, and so on that make you feel all shifty but aren’t technically kintypes or [hearttypes], yet are still important enough to your therian/’kin experience that you feel like mentioning them somehow?”
In March 2019 I finally shared a follow-up post where I suggested a few alternatives: Paratype (from para-/beside), fratertype/fratype (from frater-/sibling), and sintype (from sin-/together), all of which better describe the concept I was going for. My Anglophonic readers helpfully pointed out that the latter two words sound weird in English, and “paratype” ended up being the most popular word.
And then I never made another follow-up post.
Part II: An Ill-Defined Definition
I’m not sure why I never wrote a concise definition but in hindsight I’m glad I didn’t. It allowed for 4 years of input and discussion of the term and its scope. Originally, I wanted it to be very broad, covering “anything that doesn’t fit neatly into the established [alterhuman] categories but is still important to your nonhuman identity,” and I thank the gods that that didn’t become the go-to definition. It’s too poorly defined to be useful, and the broadness I was going for is already covered by synpath and vaguetype.
It did, however, end up with a not-much-better definition in Kiera’s Alterhuman Dictionary: “A character, animal, or mythical creature that is not a kin/therio/fictotype or a hearttype, but somehow feels important to your established identity. Some examples of how it may manifest include: inducing shifts of one or more of your established ‘types, showing up as a cameo shift that somehow feels related to your established ‘type, or feeling similar to a hearttype because they remind you of your kintype in some significant way.”
Part III: Covering All Bases
Like I said, I’m glad I ended up waiting so long to write this essay, even if it wasn’t intentional. It allowed me to see a lot of perspectives that I wouldn’t even have considered on my own.
First of all, how do you know if something’s a paratype or something else? After all, it’s possible to have two kintypes that are extremely similar, like two species from the same genus, or two characters who fit the same archetype. If they feel obviously connected, how do you determine if one of them is a paratype or something else?
The annoying answer is that you don’t — not really. Alterhumanity isn’t a hard science, we can’t run calculations to determine which identity facets fit into which categories. All our jargon should be opt-in, not something you feel forced to use because you fit a dictionary definition.
If your kintype is a labradoodle and you later learn that goldendoodles exist, and you feel like you’re a goldendoodle concurrently with being a labradoodle, you can choose to call the goldendoodle a paratype, a kintype, both, or neither.
“Paratype” is an opt-in category (no one is forced to use it) and it’s not an exclusive category (if something’s a paratype that doesn’t mean it can’t simultaneously be another kind of ‘type too).
The only requirement for something to be a paratype is that it has an associated identity. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s always an offshoot of something else. I was a bit wishy-washy about this at first since I was more attached to the “it feels like a hearttype/kintype/something else, but it’s not” part of the concept than the “it feels that way because it’s connected to your preestablished identity” part. But no, no matter how a paratype presents itself, or what the experience of it is, it’s defined by its origin: If your paratype-like feelings don’t exist because of another identity facet, it’s not a paratype.
Paratypes are not defined by their origins in the same way that some folks try to define kintypes - whether a paratype is psychological, spiritual, or something else is irrelevant. A paratype can be a quirk of the brain just as well as it can be a past life. As long as the paratype/your connection to the paratype is an offshoot/extension of a preestablished identity, it counts.
The example I’ve used most often to get the idea across is that I am a bison, and because I’m a bison it’s only natural that I feel a connection to domestic bulls. This connection does feel like a hearttype. Unrelated, I am also unicornhearted. The difference comes down to whether I can separate my otherhearted feelings from other parts of my identity. If I can (like with unicorns), I call it a hearttype. If I can’t (like with bulls) it’s a paratype. It’s definitely splitting hairs, but the distinction is valuable to me.
I did get a question once, asking if a paratype had to be an offshoot of an alterhuman identity, or if it could be connected to a gender identity or a disability. I had not considered that possibility, but I gave it a tentative yes. Especially in light of Mord’s “Alterhumanity is Queer” essay, queerness and alterhumanity is not something I want to split hairs about. If you feel connected to dogs because of your gender, or cats because of your disability, and you want to refer to those connections as paratypes, I’m not gonna stop you. More power to you!
It's also worth noting that throughout this essay I have been using animals as examples, but “paratype” is by no means limited to therianthropic/animalhearted identities. Plantfolk, fictionfolk, objectkin, conceptkin, and factualkin can all use it if they want, and the term can be used for any identity category, from kintypes and hearttypes to headmates and past lives to constels and linktypes. It can even be used for paratypes - in theory, a paratype can have a paratype can have a paratype, ad infinitum. Personally, I’m spiderhearted and as a result I feel strongly connected to other arachnids, including ticks, and as I feel connected to ticks, I feel connected to other ectoparasites, like mosquitoes and lice.
A paratype can have any kind of connection to your preestablished ‘type. I use the bison ↔ bull example often because it’s an easy way to explain the concept, but other examples may include a lion therian whose paratype is gazelles, a reptile with a sun paratype, a rabbit with a hawk paratype, a robot with a glitch paratype, a mushroom with a tree paratype, a werewolf with a silver paratype, and I could go on. Even something like a lost love from another life or an entire universe could be categorized as a paratype if you wish to do so.
You can also get noemata from a paratype, or only have one specific version of a species/object/character be your paratype. A paratype can be as vague as it can be specific - it can be every single type of dragon ever, or it can be a specific interpretation of a specific dragon species from a specific book. Essentially, you can have any kind of alterhuman experience be classified as a “paratype” as long as it meets the “offshoot/extension of a preestablished identity” criterion - which led to the excellent essay “How a hearttype gave birth to a parallel life of a paratype - a view on the connection between spiritual and psychological roots for otherkinity” which I implore you to read - but not before you’ve finished the final section:
Part IV: A Definition - Finally!
paratype, plural paratypes (noun) From para- (prefix): beside, alongside, related to; and type (noun): a particular kind, class, or group
1. (biology) a specimen of a type series other than the holotype
2. (biology) the environmental component of a phenotype
3. (alterhuman community slang) an identity facet that only exists in relation to a preestablished identity