Alterhumanplurid

We consider our system to be collectively alterhuman, but what this means differs from headmate to headmate.

Of our hundreds of headmates, a good majority are extranths - that is, physically non-human in the headspace or in their timelines. This would include Moon Aura Marsh, who are all Marshwiggles from The Chronicles of Narnia and originated as ones in the headspace.

However, sometimes there is some ambiguity as to whether a headmate "originated" as non-human or not, or even what their species is. For example, Shockwave in the system originated as a human who could shift into another form where fae had a snow leopard tail and ears. Then fae realized fae could shapeshift full-time into a talking or anthro snow leopard, so fae did. People in the system now often forget that Shockwave was ever human at all.

We also have headmates who were born human in their timelines or in the innerworld but do not see themselves as human at all. For example, Pulsar is an AU fictive of Ford Prefect who was born to a human family on Earth but perceives themself as an alien due to psychosis. They do not consider themself human at all, and no one in the system refers to them in a way that suggests they are currently or actually human (where our system does not feel that being called "alterhuman" is calling us "human" anymore than saying someone is "agender" is saying they really do have a gender).

In addition to that, we have otherkin who fully identify as their kintypes, but also with their or the body's humanity, e.g. Vyvian, who counts humans as its main species and tends to perceive himself as "more" human than most of our extranths (not as a positive or a negative but a comparative).

In terms of alterhuman experiences that are not otherkin per se, we have a collective kintype that we call "fictionkin", but as in being kin with the concept of a fictional character, not any character in particular. Mori holds this kintype very strongly, and it involves him feeling that his life is a story with a narrative and that he isn't entirely "real". Some of this may be connected to psychosis, and some of this may be connected to things our system was taught to believe about ourselves after an abuser figured out we had a system, but either way, we feel this is alterhuman.

We even have headmates who "alterspecies" - that is, an equivalent to alterhuman but where your species of origin is not human. For example, Zett is a Void Entity who is heavily fictionkin with the Nameless Ghouls from Ghost and who is regarded more as a Ghoul in the system than as a Void Entity. There is also Bleviel, an angel whose biggest kintype is humans due to voids connection to human languages and history.

Synpath is also alterhuman to us, and also distinct from kin. While we aren't too rigid about otherkin - e.g. we don't require someone to feel that they are something on an immutable level or spend years and years questioning every kintype - we DO also believe that words have meanings, and if you use a word in a way that might be a little broad (or a lot broad) compared to its traditional definition, you should have a good reason for it, and likely do. That means, if we use a word, we feel we have a good reason to use it, and if we use an alternative, we don't feel we have good reason to use it.

In our experience, there are some things that we feel strongly connected to but that are simply not our species. For example, the Marshwiggles strongly relate to frogs due to their species being a fictional one that is inspired by frogs. They sometimes even call themselves frogs, like how some he/him lesbians who are not men might call themselves a guy or a boy. However, the Marshwiggles don't really perceive themselves as frogs the same way they perceive themselves as Marshwiggles or even as actual marshes, even though some of them also feel that Marshwiggles are a kintype as well as an extranth type, and some of them have marshes as a nature kintype. Therefore, frogs are a synpath to them.

In our system, where it comes to how someone's species is listed on this site or on our SimplyPlural, "Otherkin [something]" means that the "something" is their species of origin and they consider it their main species. e.g. Vyvian is an Otherkin Human, and Venn is an Otherkin Alien (eir species of origin is an alien and this is eir most important species, but ey has important kintypes). In these situations, we regard "otherkin" as part of our species.

If someone identifies as "Alterhuman [something]", that means that the "something" is not their species of origin, but it is their primary (or only) understanding of their species now. For example, Pulsar is an Alterhuman Alien, and Zett is an Alterspecies Ghoul. In Local Void, we don't feel the need to distinguish it using labels whether someone whose main species is not their species of origin also identifies with their species of origin.

The system has collective kintypes, which we are working on pages and a site for, but some big ones are coyotes, rats, dogs, angels/demons/fallen angels, aliens/space, and the void.