Here's everything I could find from my own conversations on the Alt+H Discord between 2016 and 2022 on polymorphs. I'm collecting these statements here because none of them on their own is an essay, but all of them together say a lot.

== Personal feelings ==
1/05/2017 -- And "Air War" by Crystal Castles gives me polymorph feels. Idk why. Something about the weird mad ramblings being remixed into babbling chirping sounds.
2/11/2017 -- Feels unlike a kintype "I've always had my polymorph thing, which is a literal "i am a polymorph, if u kill me, i will rise as this thing" but it's never felt like an otherkin experience or like I'd fit calling it otherkin"


2/16/2017 -- Honestly the divine/polymorph thing for me affects my gender in that I have moments of just. Blankness. I have no name, often the only pronouns--if any--that work for me are it/its, the gender feeling is just. Void. As in non-existing. Like black holes in space and how you cant actually see them because there's literally no light there. Just a pocket of dark nothingness. I mean, that's beyond gender tbh that's just how my entire being feels when Im very much more...that thing. formless. Lotta my feelings involve intense species dysphoria in that i should not have a body and oh my gods Im trapped in a thing that will slowly die and collapse in on me
5/03/2017 -- i express again not feeling like polymorph, on its own, is a kintype "I've got two things like that really. One is being a polymorph. Just. It technically fits the definition of otherkin just. Something about it feels wrong to call that. If I took just that part of myself and went into an otherkin community I'd have very little in common."
5/08/2017 -- "Being polymorph I take on other forms by accident like all the time/can alter mine as I please/it alters itself as whatever higher want of mine dictates"
9/29/2017 -- talking about media resonances "The whole formless shapeshifting energy blob thing really resonates with me" Someone else likened it to Ditto, the pokemon, and I agreed "i get that tho, I've likened it to Ditto as well, [and] also Odo from Star Trek: DS9 [...] when he cant maintain a form anymore he just melts back into a silvery formless goo"
9/29/2017 -- "do you also get the polymorph feel of seeing a thing and having a cameo by accident bc you somehow end up mirroring stuff a lot?" Another person agreed and shared their experience with being median and polymorph. "That was me with my cat-heartedness for a while. I kept getting cameos and it took ages to sort out what it was."
10/03/2017 -- discussing overlap in Divine and Polymorph experience "To be honest I often feel like deity is...partially a thing I chose to make myself into. [1:31 PM] Which as a polymorph...:P Fits. I can mirror the model of being and set myself into it and use it to build upon myself."
10/05/2017 -- "Im kind of in a weird place wrt that and my own fursona, since it kinda merged with my polymorph/divine thing as a major form of mine and its like. I am the thing. But not in a kin way. But kind of?"
12/15/2017 -- someone begins a discussion asking how other polymorphs envision themselves when they change forms, giving "a quick flash of light" and "turning into liquid and reshaping" as examples. Someone else expressed feeling like the pokemon Ditto. I had this to say: "I tend to see myself as a combination of like...wispy smoke and light? So if I'm moving forms and my 'base' form is involved at all, then I tend to feel/envision fluid light." Two self-identified shapeshifters said it was "like when you stretch your arms in a big yawn except you keep going."

Someone later that same day talked about feeling depressed if nothing new happens with their shape for a long time, a feeling which I can relate to and corroborate as a polymorph one. And on 12/23/17 another conversation about shapeshifting and feeling stuck in one form happens. Many people discuss the inability to change forms as depressing.

== defining polymorph ==
2/16/18 -- on the topic of wanting/gaining new kintypes "But personally along with that, being a polymorph where I already like collecting and changing forms and get cameos and flickers to stuff like that anyway, tends to make that more common for me," and someone else agreed, identifying as a "polymorphic system"
3/16/2017 -- vagabondsun described the distinction between polymorph and shapeshifter: "i would say also that there's a semantic difference in polymorph vs shapeshifter in the kin community [...] where the former implies blank slate that can become anything where the latter doesn't necesarily"
4/23/18 -- "polymorphic system" defined as "the polymorphic nature applying to the entire system and not just one specific member"
4/24/18 -- I generally define polymorph as "formless energy being that shapeshifts and mimics other forms as part of its nature" and that lines up
11/08/2017 -- someone questions whether polymorph applies to them because their "base form" is less energy being and more wet clay, i give my thoughts "I think that's close enough to "formless blob" that you could still use polymorph to describe yourself if you were, say, just a ...biological-type organism that happens to have the other qualities of a polymorph, the mirroring, shapeshifting, general itch or impulse to change forms, etc
It is frustrating to have so few resources on polymorphs, But because of that, I'd say there's plenty of wiggle room in interpretations for polymorphs there ;P n that doesn't sound far off" Another person describes polymorphs as "amoeba-like"
Further discussion of polymorphs having "default," "preferred" or "comfort" forms that we take in order to present as anything besides formless. Many experience this, some with a species bias in their overall shapeshifting as well. Another shapeshifter says they *dont* identify as a polymorph because they have a solid base form. Others describe polymorphs as having unlimited forms, and shapeshifters as being limited in how many forms they take on.
== choosing shifts ==

since choice has become an increasing topic of discourse in kin spaces over the past 7 years or so, I guess it'll be relevent to note how many conversations happened regarding the element of choice in form and shifts for polymorphs. Many of us consistently expressed that it was both a thing we felt without any prompting or choice, and that we could choose forms at times. Some felt like chosen forms were harder to maintain than those spontaneously developed, others didn't. Jokes would often happen where one of us decided to change shape to be funny in a situation, or because a shape change happened that was funny, or because a hypothetical shape change was funny.
Polymorphy often came up when the topic of voluntary/involuntary identity discourse did, expressing itself as a non-binary option, a "quoiluntary" option**

== disordered eating, #actuallydivine, and polymorphs ==

interestingly, when I went through the archives of conversations that have happened on the discord about polymorphs, I found that the topic had come up often alongside discussions of disordered eating.

2/22/2017 -- a conversation on posts romanticising smoking and disordered eating in the #actuallydivine community at the time "And yeah those "forgetting to eat" posts are like....Idk I have ARFID and one of my subtypes is "I have literally no appetite I cannot eat anything ever" so it's kind of relatable, especially as being a polymorph with no corporeal form in nature overlaps with that sometimes."
4/20/2017 -- "So, I have ARFID and this pretty seriously affects my appetite and what foods i can eat. But I've also noticed that there are times when eating like...specifically contributes to species dysphoria because as a polymorph i feel like I'm not supposed to eat. Having a body in general is dysphoric and eating is a powerful reminder of this. Usually the only foods i can eat at this time are fruits/vegetables and like...cold cut sandwiches. Very specifically. Because they dont really register the same way like...every other food does."
5/29/2017 -- "Yeah I get the feeling. As a polymorph I just. Bodily functions of all sorts are awful bc. :B I had no body. AFA eating goes, I get by on chocolate protein shakes and fruit, when that happens. Light and unintrusive, imo."
== cameo shifts ==
Very often, the topic of shifting and cameo shifts would come up among polymorphs on the server. Usually nothing in-depth, but often comments on what we've shifted to recently, what has triggered cameos, how we felt about them (usually surprised, sometimes confused), etc. It could be said that frequent cameo shifts are a feature of polymorph experience. Most interesting to me were the times I talked about accidentally picking up others accents, or having my internal voice become someone else's for a while. Other polymorphs sometimes had similar experiences.

== On anti-polymorph bias ==
12/24/16 -- a post on Tumblr got me ruffled because some group was being exclusionary of certain kintypes, namely polymorphs, because "[polymorph] is not a very well explored kintype, and is often used by people as a way to justify anything they may feel and to feel superior to others."
5/10/2017 -- i discuss being grilled on Kinmunity for being a polymorph "Lol I got grilled personally for being a polymorph AND having other kintypes :V I had to justify how I knew it wasnt all just the same thing bc otherwise Im just wrong