So, polymorphy... I have a theory as to where ours came from. It's less that we're specific, shapeshifting entities and more that the brain just plain... wasn't loaded with a consistent self-perception/sense of "me" for whatever reason.
So instead it plugs garbage data from elsewhere into this slot, usually something visually interesting it saw in the surrounding environment recently that it flags as "me". Sometimes it's an oddness as brief as getting a flash of a random wolf pic I just looked at doing what I'm doing right now, sometimes I get quite a strong shift of something like a hearttype, or someone from a hyperfixation, or a character from my daydreams that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about. These tend to last around a day and come with things like phantom limbs and the inescapable sense that my body's shape is Wrong. This is why what I've called a kintype before is just a bunch of things that match my "internal wavelength" the most rather than anything specific, feels the most correct to be.
This is also why my most common monster manifestation is "humanoid but there's something indescribably fucked up and reptillian about me" or an animal headed humanoid. Because my brain ambiently absorbs the presence of humanoid limbs just by going about my day, but I can't see the body's face unless I'm staring in a mirror (something I REALLY prefer not to do). It's a fitting appearance for an nd-inhuman, for a liminal beast skulking around the edges of human society, spreading discomfort among those it only somewhat resembles..
Adrian's form is a bit less chaotic, he's a fictionflickerer that absorbs the appearance and identity of a character from the mind's latest hyperfixation that is most similar to him with some minor deviations. And yet it often takes effort not to shift, still he cycles between other, temporary forms at times, all creatures mirrored that match his unique but indescribable essence.
