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Never read anything else in the Walkyverse, so I gave this comic a shot. I like, so far. Especially the current arc, with Roz defending her sexual freedom, despite some unforeseen consequences.

Anyone else reading Dumbing of Age?

Edited by wingedcatgirl on Nov 5th 2025 at 3:20:57 PM

wingedcatgirl mys. minty from the silly dimension from lurking (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Oh my word! I'm gay!
mys. minty from the silly dimension
#25976: Nov 6th 2025 at 2:03:10 AM

She thinks Joyce only cares about herself.

Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#25977: Nov 6th 2025 at 2:18:36 AM

If she'd be projecting any more she'd be legally required to sell popcorn. *rimshot*

"You can reply to this Message!"
Spindriver Fanatical Dabbler from UK Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Fanatical Dabbler
#25978: Nov 6th 2025 at 3:53:22 AM

[up][up][up]Flipped over into narcissism, I suspect.

And as the alt text seems to imply, the fact that Raidah is a completely horrible person doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s wrong about that.

= Spindriver =
thok That's Dr. Title, thank you! (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Non-Canon
That's Dr. Title, thank you!
#25979: Nov 6th 2025 at 4:02:10 AM

To layout the point that the point that Raidah is trying to make: she's angry that Joyce and Dorothy's actions made the protest be a story about heroic LGBQTs rather than be a story about the policies the protest is trying to oppose.

Or at least, that's the story Raidah is telling herself.

Edited by thok on Nov 6th 2025 at 4:02:30 AM

Whowho Since: May, 2012
#25980: Nov 6th 2025 at 5:23:20 AM

And Joyce is blatantly unapologetic about that here.

thatindiantroper Since: Feb, 2015
#25981: Nov 6th 2025 at 5:51:43 AM

Radiyah didnt bring that up here.

Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#25982: Nov 6th 2025 at 6:12:49 AM

Not only did Raidah not actually bring it up if that’s her problem, it’s also not actually something that’s Joyce’s fault at all. Raidah really seems to think there was some sort of collusion between Joyce/Dorothy and the newspaper, meanwhile, Joyce didn’t really know anything about the Bulmeria thing and obviously hasn't made the connection between the newspaper and the protest’s point being buried.

That’s not good, but not a single other person Joyce has talked to has made the connection either and because Raidah won’t fucking spit it out and instead chose to go vague and subtle to a ludicrous degree, Joyce can’t even figure out what exactly Raidah is even mad about. If Raidah just said “you being heroically gay managed to erase what the protestors were working for”, maybe that might get through, but because she won’t say what her actual point is and won’t give anything to back up her stuff about Joyce being selfish, Joyce doesn’t have anything to work with.

Because…yeah, Joyce is being selfish, but Raidah is also doing this right after Joyce helped her sister not get outed to their dad and while Joyce is in the middle of a big hormone rush. If Raidah won’t fucking say what her fucking problem is, Joyce isn’t going to figure it out and to be honest, that’s not really Joyce’s fault. “Shaming Joyce won’t work”, okay, when has Raidah actually tried that? Shaming Sarah doesn’t work (in large part because Sarah wasn’t actually wrong about the problem and Raidah was), but like I said, Raidah doesn’t seem to have ever actually tried confronting Joyce directly about anything.

EDIT: To be clear, it’s not Raidah’s job to educate Joyce or anything like that, but this tactic of “I’m mad at you so I’m never going to directly state what my problem is and refuse to confront it directly so I’ll really, really vaguely imply something completely different and get annoyed that you don’t pick up on it” is fucking awful.

Edited by Zendervai on Nov 6th 2025 at 6:28:06 AM

3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#25983: Nov 6th 2025 at 7:17:23 AM

Raidah also probably wouldn't give a fuck (beyond maybe some Twitter Outrage) if it had been anyone but someone she considers a personal enemy.

"You can reply to this Message!"
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#25984: Nov 6th 2025 at 8:37:49 AM

Both people do suck in this situation (like, that was really not the actual time and place for Joyce to make out with Dorothy, that's true, and Joyce did do Raidah super dirty and it is an issue that Joyce is so oblivious to the impact of her actions) but yeah, Raidah is picking possibly the single least effective route possible to get back at Joyce. And it is pretty obvious just to get back at Joyce because if it had been a different queer couple kissing, she might have gone to the newspaper and complained, but she wouldn't have gone after the actual people involved.

I've seen people ask why Raidah wasn't at the protest herself, but IMO, that's really obvious. She's a really aggressive social climber who puts a huge amount of work into her image and (attempts to do it with) her reputation. Even if she agrees with the protest, being seen there could kill some of her prospects, so she'll step up maybe, but only if it won't get to anyone that could hurt her prospects. Daisy's not really gonna do anything, so she's safe to call out and Joyce doesn't have any useful connections, so she's safe to go after too.

LATE EDIT: This has been percolating a lot and I think a lot of the reason Joyce is so bad at recognizing consequences is because she's mostly been sheltered from them. The really crazy shit that happened with Ross had basically fuck all to do with Joyce's decisions and wasn't at all her fault (and the roofie incident was similar, where it was a mistake on Joyce's part, but she wasn't responsible for the way that guy treated her), but no one really wants to confront her with anything bad she's done because she's clearly so fucked up from her upbringing. Meanwhile, she actually did really wrong Raidah and might have actually been receptive to a conversation, but Raidah has such a shitty attitude about a lot of things and won't approach stuff like this directly, so the result is that Joyce might have actually been receptive if Raidah had said what her problem was, instead of acting like Joyce is fully cognizant of everything that's happening. Joyce is bad at understanding where other people are coming from, but you can't fix that by vaguely hinting at unrelated shit and hoping she magically puts the pieces together.

Edited by Zendervai on Nov 6th 2025 at 4:40:08 AM

TalesofUnder Not Sherlock Holmes from 1900s England Since: May, 2017 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Not Sherlock Holmes
#25985: Nov 6th 2025 at 6:35:41 PM

…I came in the door because I had read ten years’ worth of this comic in less than two weeks, without ever having even known it existed before a random wandering Bluesky post, and wanted to profess my love for it.

It seems like I am eternally fated to never be able to gauge the opinions on a work before jumping into it.

Edited by TalesofUnder on Nov 6th 2025 at 2:35:50 PM

“Now! Let us engage in the art of deduction!”
Shep55 Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: Abstaining
#25986: Nov 6th 2025 at 7:15:01 PM

Raidah can't say the real reason that this is happening because that reason doesn't really exist in universe.

We know from what Willis has said that every strip we've read since the protest with Asma in it was written after people reacted badly to the protest being solely a backdrop to the 'wedding' of Joyce and Dorothy, and Willis decided to put more muslim rep in the comic. Which includes the comic where Raidah reads the paper, and probably includes the strips where she confronts Daisy and confirms that she is muslim.

Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#25987: Nov 6th 2025 at 7:30:32 PM

I mean, given that he pretty directly stated that he needs Muslim representation that *isn’t just Raidah*, I don’t think much, if any of the recent Raidah stuff is added.

https://bsky.app/profile/damnyouwillis.bsky.social/post/3ltzl6kdm622q

Willis directly points out how awkward this is when his only prominent Muslim character is kinda shitty. The stuff about Joyce and Dorothy inviting Asma out to a thing because they feel bad is probably the actually added thing. Pointing out that the only representation being Raidah and then adding *more* Raidah being terrible is a really baffling choice that I don’t think Willis is stupid enough to do, but he also says he only had three strips of in the story and we’ve gotten more than that now already.

Like…nothing about the way Raidah is acting is really out of character. She’s performatively progressive but doesn’t really follow it up in any coherent way and that’s been extremely well established for her entire appearance, even before she got overtly nasty. Remember, she treated Dina like she was 12 and only had an issue with a friend calling Dina an r-slur and it sounds like she barely followed up with Sarah’s former roommate.

I think the idea is likely like…Raidah approaches this in a really shitty, Raidah way where she won’t tell Joyce what the actual problem is because she’s already decided that Joyce is completely unreceptive to any criticism based on…nothing much at all given that she didn’t really confront Joyce over the Jacob thing, meanwhile, Asma is also really annoyed and unhappy about what happened, but isn’t a huge asshole to people she doesn’t really like and so if Joyce and Dorothy push her buttons too much, she’ll probably just flat tell the two what the problem is.

Raidah could easily act like this is about the protest, but she only ever refers to it in the most oblique ways possible which, thinking about it, is actually how she talks about Sarah to other people. She extremely vaguely hints at something but gives no details and no information people can actually use, and it only really works because Sarah’s so closed off.

Edited by Zendervai on Nov 6th 2025 at 7:37:55 AM

Whowho Since: May, 2012
#25988: Nov 6th 2025 at 11:30:48 PM

Connecting

[up][up][up] You're right to love this comic. It's wonderful to archive binge.

What's your favourite characters and storylines you've read?

Amber and Amzi-girl realised they had DID in tandem with me realising the same for myself, so that storyline will always be special to myself.

Edited by Whowho on Nov 6th 2025 at 11:43:21 AM

thatindiantroper Since: Feb, 2015
#25989: Nov 7th 2025 at 2:18:16 AM

"You're right to love this comic."

I wouldn't go that far.tongue

Also, small world. I picked this strip back up after almost 4 years, also because of an errent B Sky post.

Damn Blue Sky.

CountofBleck Starting to believe in himself from New Wirral (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Starting to believe in himself
#25990: Nov 7th 2025 at 2:35:32 AM

Welcome to our little house of madness and mayhem, you guys.

TalesofUnder Not Sherlock Holmes from 1900s England Since: May, 2017 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Not Sherlock Holmes
#25991: Nov 7th 2025 at 5:51:36 AM

[up][up][up] I have a soft spot for Dina, Joyce, and especially Amber.

[up][up] Is it possible that we in fact saw the same exact post?

Edited by TalesofUnder on Nov 7th 2025 at 1:52:11 PM

“Now! Let us engage in the art of deduction!”
wingedcatgirl mys. minty from the silly dimension from lurking (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Oh my word! I'm gay!
mys. minty from the silly dimension
#25993: Nov 7th 2025 at 10:51:47 AM

It's a fun comic. Sometimes it's also a little dumb. ing of age

Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.
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