Discount Ghidorah System

Welcome to my one year update on trying to figure out my digivolution line!

Written by Hortense

Here’s a link to anyone curious about my original musings. It also includes more of a primer on the nature of digimon (and x-digimon in particular.)

 

My original draft of digivolutions:

I’ve kept all the forms I listed above – except one. The perfect form (hisyaryumon - the black/red dragon with the orbs). However, I do note in my original piece that I was really shaky on including hisyaryumon. Last year I noted that the main “vibes” I was looking for were flight and metal components which describes a lot of digimon! What hisyaryumon had that other digimon did not is that they were a canon evolution for growlmon and raptordramon and could turn into holydramon.

The others I am very confident and happy with. I actually get growlmon x and holydramon x shifts pretty frequently now. Raptordramon and examon x not so much, but it feels right to leave them. Like, they are part of my line, but I didn’t spend as much time in those forms.

 

So I’ve been trying out different digimon.

I add them to my evolution list and wait and see if they stick. Does it feel natural to include them? Do I get shifts of them? Does it feel forced or uncomfortable?

It’s my vaguetype and I’ll do what I want. I’m cool with parts of my identity being voluntary – but we’ve, for lack of a better term, got to be drift compatible.

I can’t just pick random digimon and feel satisfied long-term. They have to feel right for me and in tandem with my other forms.

 

Here’s a second draft I made for my digivolution line:



Later on, I started getting less flight and more canine feelings and updated my list. (Note: Examon is still an evolution of mine, I just didn’t feel like drawing them atm lol)

And I still love cerberumon x, but since drawing this I’ve gained an Ethiopian wolf vaguetype and all my canine feelings shifted there instead.

Why not try out non-canon digimon?

I’ve tried drawing my own non-canon species and breaking away from canon forms, but my feelings are too indistinct. I just know what fits and what doesn’t, but I don’t have a clear reflection I can point to. It’s hard to draw something so visually blurry to my mind. At this time, drawing my own species is not something I want to pursue.

So what’s next?
Our most recent challengers are: dorugreymon, meicrackmon and raguelmon. Also, gigaseadramon x but as a random one-off evolution.



Raguelmon has been a paratype for me for a bit. This digimon’s deal is that they observe angel digimon and, if they notice them about to fall, it destroys them before they can fall completely.

In Digimon Tri, this digimon is used as a pawn by the same entity that created the x-program (which started the destruction of the digiworld) in my canon. I feel connected to them with my own complicated history with Yggdrasill and feeling betrayed by digimon (in this case the royal knights) which I had believed were there to protect me.

And being able to lash out at them with huge claws.

Meicrackmon is raguelmon’s natural pre-evolution so I tacked them on too to try out. (I’m watching Ghost Game for the first time rn and am super excited for the meicrackmon episode!)

Dorugreymon visually looks really cohesive – it’s a dragon and is a nice middle ground between growlmon x and holydramon x, but…idk. That’s kinda it for this form.

As much as I love the dorumon line, my relationship to it is more like…they’re a friend? I’m not them, but someone I was close to was one? Musing on my past teammates is better saved for another journal entry though! But basically, it feels off to have a dorugreymon on my list because it’s someone else’s evolution instead of my own. I’ll give it a little bit of time though before removing.

I said before that I don't want to explore making my own digimon species, but I am interested in trying my claw at stylizing them, or even outright creating variants, for my forms. I feel like tailoring them in this way makes them more personal – not just a random member of the species - but me. For example, like what I did with my dracomon form, giving myself more curved natural horns instead of the harsh X-shape. Another huge component is that it makes my forms way easier to draw. I could just never get the X-shaped horns to look right!

Tldr; I did pretty good a year ago, got a lot of my forms nailed down, but I’m still tinkering.

In slightly related news: Digimon has a big year coming up with a new anime, game, comics and TCG stuff. There’s bound to be a ton of new canon digimon added! I can’t wait!