A world below

[777wms-archive]

Welcome to the archived version of Ask Delilah!

When Ask Delilah started out, it was telling a very different story than the one it’s telling now. While Delilah’s current life is set in Ponyville, the first incarnation of Delilah’s story was a mixture of The Screwtape Letters, the Divine Comedy, and the My Little Pony franchise. Thus, the story centered around a pony/demon hybrid who lived in Hell’s 7th Circle.

Over time, this ended up being too dark for the mod who ran the comic, and so it began going through various changes until it eventually went through complete reboot and transformation into its current form.

This Tumblr is an archive of what came before. Some of the posts also have a little extra commentary added to them to provide some background information about where the story was headed or just what was going through the mod’s mind at the time the post was made.

From here, you have three options:

Click here to view all of the archived posts

Or click here to read the old story in chronological order

Or finally, click here to head over to the current version of the blog

[777wms-archive]

Images originally posted during late November 2018

In mid-October 2018, I came down with a rather bad bout of food poisoning, and basically remained bedridden for about two weeks. Normally, you’d say that getting really sick like that isn’t a good thing, and I’d agree. But, in this case, there was a silver lining: I had a lot of time to think about things, and in turn, came up with a way to salvage Delilah’s Tumblr.

Back in mid-summer 2018, I’d begun thinking about how we don’t get much in the way of happy families in media. Generally speaking, happiness is treated as something the protagonist needs to lose at the start of their story, or it’s something they only find right before the credits roll and the curtain falls. Defeat the bad guy, save the world, get the girl. The end.

But what if we didn’t make happy-ever-after the ultimate goal?

There are many types of conflicts in storytelling, so why not focus on something other than person vs person, good vs evil? Why not person vs self, or person vs environment?

Thus, the idea of having Delilah, a character rooted in hedonism and self-interest, deal with being a “responsible” parent. There would be no demons, no bad guys, nor a world to save. Just an average mare trying to be a good mother.

This massive change was announced in late November 2018, along with the release of the three in-progress images shown above.

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on July 23rd, 2018 (top) and August 2nd 2018 (bottom).

After repeated attempts to revive the Tumblr had failed, I considered changing the focus of the story to get away from the Hellish and demonic aspects that had been bothering me. In this new reboot idea, the story would take place in the world of a roleplaying board game. Thus, the new characters would be based on playable characters in the game, such as the Alchemist, Chivalric Knight, and Prophetess. Delilah would appear as a snarky, self-interested assistant to the corrupted Alchemist. Additionally, to give everything a more unique theme (and keep things slightly easier to manipulate in the graphic editor I use), it would use a limited grayscale color palette.

However, two problems came up while working on this reboot. As before, I wasn’t terribly thrilled with the anthro-style puppets, which diminished my enthusiasm for the project.

The other issue was that the board game turned out to be somewhat obscure with only a niche following. Thus, playing by the rules would appear arbitrary and random, making any story or update difficult for people to follow. You see, unlike a game like D&D, this board game implements character classes by having each class follow a slightly different ruleset. Rules that govern one class’s behavior don’t always apply to another class, and if you’re not familiar with this system, it just looks like things are being made up as you go along.

At this point, it seemed that Delilah’s Tumblr comic was dead for good.

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on February 6th 2018 (left) and June 12th, 2018 (right).

In an attempt to revive this Tumblr, I experimented with shifting things to a semi-anthro design. This led to various experiments, but the character’s puppets just wouldn’t turn out right.

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on October 27th, 2016

The only holiday post made during this version of the Tumblr, this has Delilah dressed as Alice Liddell from American McGee’s Alice and brandishing the hobby horse, one of the signature weapons from the game.

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on October 27th, 2017

If you’ve been watching the dates, you’ll have noticed that updates started having longer and longer delays between them. This wasn’t really due to time constraints or problems with where to take the story (ie, normal reasons for me being slow in updating). Instead, I was starting to have moral issues with the comic itself.

Simply put, I’d begun regularly studying the Bible and attending various Church related functions. The more I studied, the less comfortable I was with telling a story set in Hell.

In late August / early September I ended up nearly dying due to a parasitic infection. As implausible as that sounds, it really happened, and the stay in the hospital helped solidify my thoughts on how things were going in my life.

This eventually led to this comic, where Delilah’s comments echo my own regarding this Tumblr and a few other things I was working on. Caballo’s last remark also echos another option being considered: just quit. Nobody’s forcing me to work on these blogs, so why not bow out and go on my way?

Lastly, this post also included the most explicit and dark reference I was comfortable making. Delilah’s position in this comic is no accident. It’s easiest to recognize from the final panel, where the whole scene is visible.

Recognize it? Her pose, the tree beside her, and the way her tail is curled around her leg is a direct reference to The Hanged Man, one of the Major Arcana in a Tarot deck. This was specifically chosen because of what it means if it’s seen when reading someone’s fortune.

This card indicates that the person is facing a difficult choice, and because they are unable to choose between their options, they are trapped. It’s important to note that the Hanged Man is tied up by a snare, not a noose -- they are merely restrained, not being strangled. Thus they can free themselves by making that choice.

Here, the choice is whether or not to abandon Delilah’s Tumblr, and at first, this was the choice I made. Three months later, I’d start thinking of ways to revive the blog to be less offensive and more interesting.

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on May 23rd, 2017

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on March 13th, 2017

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on December 15th, 2016

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on November 30th, 2016

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on November 16th, 2016

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on October 16th, 2016

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on September 26th, 2016

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on September 13th, 2016

Dante’s Inferno was one of the main sources for this blog. In that story, the 7th Circle of Hell punishes those who committed crimes against order. Thus, it’s only natural for Delilah, a being who was created by the disordered union of a demon and a mortal, to live here.

Compared to most areas in Hell, this Circle houses a lot of different types of sinners. The common thread, as mentioned above, is that they violated natural order in some way (often violently). Both Caballo and his friend Montana are here because Dante viewed homosexuality is considered to be akin to sodomy, which is a perversion of mankind’s sexual nature. This is punished by having them spend eternity walking on burning sands, unable to rest or stand still for long.

However, Caballo mentions being attacked by the hellhounds that patrol this area. Hellhounds DO live in this Circle, but they don’t punish the sodomites. Their role is to enact vengeance on those whose chief sin was a crime against the natural world -- animal cruelty for example. As you’ll see in a few posts, this means that something isn’t going according to God’s plan for this area.

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on September 1st, 2016

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on August 23rd, 2016

[777wms-archive]

Originally posted on August 4th, 2016