What exactly does a para-hearthome entail? How is that experienced?
Well, parahearthome kind of isn't a real term right now; someone off-handedly used the term in a question about whether that could be a thing or if it might have another word during the Q&A after my Othercon panel on hearthomes this year, and that's kind of that on that.
The idea is essentially, a world, place, setting, etc. that evokes strong feelings in you specifically because it's similar to your actual hearthome. For example, if your hearthome is Dinotopia, other settings with humans and dinosaurs living side-by-side may trigger similar feelings because they're similar to Dinotopia, but not enough so for them to be hearthomes on their own (or to expand the definition of your hearthome to a broader "dinosaur-human societies" or similar). Currently, there's not a great term for that; parahearthome is a bit of a mouthful, and I'm considering suggesting just parahome to the community at large? But I'm not sure I love that, and I haven't come up with anything better just yet.
