Word count: ~1800
Reading time: ~6 minutes
- https://aestherians.tumblr.com/post/657145929223307264/
- https://aestherians.tumblr.com/post/672387556530405377/
There are some characters that are “literally me” in the sense that their journeys, their personalities, their trials and blessings, and their fears and comforts match my own to an often-uncomfortable degree. We are like twins separated at birth, like doppelgängers in everything but appearance, or like soulmates that were never supposed to meet. They are not kintypes. I don’t feel like I am these characters on any level. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that it feels as if these characters are me. But identifying as something is not the be-all end-all of identity and there is a lot of room for different relationships and identity facets outside the scope of kintypes.
Part I: Defining Otherheartedness
I won’t appoint myself as the arbiter of what is and is not a hearttype. I don’t think any one person can define “otherhearted” in a way that accurately represents every person who uses the term. Otherheartedness was originally coined with only real-life animals in mind, and as having an element of voluntarity, but these traits don’t describe most of the otherhearted folks I’ve talked to. To some users in the original coining thread, otherheartedness was also used as a psychological alternative to the (at the time) more spiritually minded therianthropy.
I can see some benefits to this vagueness. It would be helpful to have a term that functions as a catch-all for any identity that doesn’t fit into other categories, and which can be interpreted in many different ways. But I don’t think ‘otherhearted’ is the best candidate for this.
We’re in a bit of a hey-day of new identity terms being coined. Both widely useful terms like endel, othervague, and constelic, and more individual terms like folcintera and fictanthrope, have all been coined within the last year. Many more terms have been proposed, most of which have fallen to the wayside. The community thankfully self-regulates like this: If a term isn’t useful, no one will use it. If people use a term, there must have been a need for it.
I don’t think ‘otherhearted’ was intended to have a prescriptive definition like all these new terms do. That is, the definition given by its coiner was intentionally left up to interpretation, and its coiner didn’t correct people when they used the word in a way that strayed from the definition. Which contrasts with the very prescriptive nature of most of the terms being proposed these days.
I’m usually more of a descriptivist, i.e., I believe language is defined more by its usage, than its dictionary definitions. But in a community like this, which concerns itself with defining identities and ontological phenomena, I don’t think language descriptivism is very useful. After all, descriptivism is what led to the redefining of ‘kin’ that has happened on TikTok, as described in my previous essay.
It’s too late to prescribe a definition to otherheartedness. It was coined more than a decade ago and is so widely used nowadays, there’s no way a new definition would gain a foothold. But we can observe how people use the term to describe themselves and try to narrow it down to its essentials. To do so accurately and in-depth would require an essay of its own, but, in short, the only part of the original definition that I see people use today is “identify with.” The original definition included four other qualifiers: Identifying as fully human, specifically identifying with an animal, the identification being similar to a totem, and the otherhearted experiencing shifts as a way to become closer to the animal in question. Aside from the ability to experience shifts (though not necessarily as a way to connect with a hearttype, usually just as a side effect of being otherhearted), I don’t see the other qualifiers being used at all today.
So, we’re left with the very vague “to be otherhearted is to identify with something.” In and of itself, I don’t think this concept is worthy of its own term. Every individual on Earth identifies with something: Family members, job titles, personality types, fashion movements, colors, songs, stories, traditions, and so on. We want ‘otherhearted’ to be a useful descriptor of an identity facet, not a vague word to cover the breadth of the entire (non)human experience.
The real questions then become: How can we understand the phrase “identify with,” through the lens of defining identities/self-perceptions? And how can it be understood in a specifically alterhuman way?
The most straight-forward answer is that your identification with something has to be strong enough to impact your sense of self. In fact, I would say whatever you define as a hearttype has to be inseparable from the way you conceptualize your identity (of course without being something you actually identify as, as that would instead make it a kintype). For example, your hearttype could be something that has affected your development as a person, affects your personality, has altered your course in life, and/or influences your actions. To count as an alterhuman phenomenon, the identification would have to be somehow outside of the scope of what’s considered a “normal” human experience, but that I will leave up to interpretation!
Part II: Synpaths, vaguetypes, and paratypes, oh my!
Delving into the background, meaning, and use of otherheartedness might have felt like a bit of a digression but it was, unfortunately, necessary. Most of the following identity words were created prescriptively, so examining them will be quicker.
Synpath was created in 2015 to describe “something you identify with on several levels.” It’s the broad and vague term that ‘otherhearted’ could have been, encompassing everything from concepts to animals to characters. It’s meant to cover things that resonate with you, things you relate to but which aren’t necessarily a strong part of your identity, things you share a lot of traits with, and more. In this sense ‘synpath’ is a bit of an umbrella term. It can cover a multitude of experiences, the same way ‘otherkind’ can include anything from archetypal therians to original character fictionkind. In practice, it’s mostly used as an alternative to the -hearted suffix, usually just because “[name] is my synpath” rolls off the tongue a bit better than “I am [name]-hearted.”
Othervague is, similarly, an umbrella term, though in this case it was created to encompass every single identity facet/relationship that doesn’t fit neatly into any previously established categories. The term is inclusive of those who simply don’t wish to bother with specific labels and definitions.
Paratype is a monster of my own making. I came up with it in 2018 and have yet to write a coining essay, but it basically includes every connection and relationship you have with something, that only exists because of your pre-established identity. For example, I have hearted-like feelings for bulls, but these feelings only exist because I am a bison. If I weren’t a bison, I would not feel connected to bulls. Ergo, my bull connection is an off-shoot of my bison theriotype - bulls are a paratype to my theriotype. This also includes hearted identities; I am unicornhearted and feel connected to okapis because of it.
Comfort characters are just what it says on the tin - characters that bring you comfort. Beyond that, it’s very vague. A synpath can also be a comfort character, as can a kintype or hearttype or any other type of identification.
Kardiatype is a word for a past life that had a profound impact on your personality and/or core identity, and which still affects you to this day, but which is no longer something you identify as.
Experience-taking is the process of taking on traits of a character as you read/watch/play through their story. It’s often the cause of cameo-shifts and tends to fade away after a while, though it can cement itself into a more permanent type of identity, such as a fictotype or hearttype.
Constelic refers to people who adopt (and may discard) identities throughout their life with relative frequency Constels (the identities that are adopted) can be of varying intensity and presentation, from something as personal as a kintype to as separate as a comfort character.
Clicking is when you strongly relate to something, which is a purposefully vague definition. It was coined as a potential replacement for kin-as-a-verb.
Part III: Umbrellas are the mothers of invention
As I mentioned in the introduction, I experience another type of identification-with, which I feel is distinct enough that I don’t want to just lump it under an umbrella term. You thought you were reading an analysis essay? Ha! This was a coining essay all along >:)
As with all words, you can choose to use this or not. It’s an opt-in label. If you’d rather refer to these types of relationships as synpaths, hearttypes, or any other previously mentioned word, you’re more than welcome. But I feel like the identity deserves its own word, and not just be lumped in under the synpath umbrella.
I’ve decided to call this type of identity a “simile”, which is typically defined as “a figure of speech comparing two unlike things” and its synonyms include metaphor, analogy, and likeness. In the context of alterhuman identity, similes are all about self-recognition through the other. They are characters, animals, themes, objects, and concepts that cause you to recognize traits that already existed within yourself. Rather than affecting your sense of self, as kintypes and hearttypes do, similes merely reflect what was already there. Looking at your simile feels less like looking in a mirror and more like looking at a portrait - a representation - of yourself. The character (if the simile is a character) can be used as a representation or a metaphor for yourself.
This is quite different from a hearttype - in a way, kinda the opposite of a hearttype. My hearttypes are just as integral to who I am as my kintypes are. I wouldn’t be the person that I am if I weren’t unicornhearted or spiderhearted or Tarzan-hearted. These other character relationships, my similes, don’t affect who I am as a person. Instead I feel an identification with them because of who I was prior to knowing about them, and I wouldn’t be a different person if they weren’t in my life. Basically:
Hearttype: “Feeling this relationship has led to the person I am today”
Simile: “Being the person I am today has led to feeling this relationship”
In other words, this is what a simile is:
