#asma abbasi

[billieownedcount]

First Appearance. 3 Strips In. Tone: Set.

Original Strip

[dumbingofage]

Asma!

[queenofsodor]

wait so it's been a manga this whole time instead of a novel????

oh my god this rocks, i love what it retroactively says about asma that she's reading manga in public at her dayjob

[animation-recaps-by-sean]

Ranking Dumbing of Age's Valentine's Strips by Heartbreak

16) 2020

This as nothing to do with romance good or bad. 2020 was the tenth anniversary year and guess that willis couldn't fit a little heartbreak between all the plot.

15) 2013

No heartbreak but at least it's romance. Just Billie shorting out her feeling while Daisy is into girl on girl. (of course one could argue that all of Billie/Ruth is heartbreak)

14) 2012

Losses point for being about an aftermath rather than the moment. Also no one actually breaks up over this. Like the strip of AMber catching Billie leaving Danny's room would have worked more. Amber's hurt but only until she learns that Danny was telling the truth. A bit of heartbreak for walkyverse fans as this pretty much shuts the door on Billie and Danny.

13) 2019

While embarrassing for Lucy, her attraction to Walky is still in it's infancy so it doesn't have a real sting to it. (Billie is drunk after yet another fight with Ruth but that's in the background rather than the main event of the strip)

12) 2022

Losses points because Joyce herself isn't experiencing any love issues here, just a bad period. It is juxtaposed with Dina and Bucky having sex for the first time, but that context is lost as a stand alone strip

11) 2015

Finally a break up. This is somewhat negated by this being a good thing. Joyce is realizing that she can't and shouldn't 'cure' Ethan and Ethan is realizing that he can't wish away what he is.

10) 2026

Asma lamenting her love life is something else she has to worry about. Asma is a little too new for this to go any higher but just inching into the top ten ain't bad

9) 2016

Dina being alone while Becky is there for Joyce. While this does underline the issue that leads to their fight/break up in the current storyline (feb 14 2026 as of writing this), it is somewhat negated by the fact Becky has some business in her hometown to take care of; retrieving her social security number and birth certificate.

8) 2025

Just Billie blowing her chance to reconnect to Alice before it began.

7) 2021

Lucy just throwing herself at him and Walky just picks up nothing. These two were really doomed from the start, weren't they?

6) 2023

Dorothy setting not only herself but Lucy and Walky up for heartbreak. Also derails Joe and Joyce's romance in the long run as well. Way to go Dorothy.

5) 2011

And our first valentine's day. More of the aftermath than the moment but Joe and Joyce fighting after their first date fell apart is an appropriate one

4) 2024

man, not even a dumping just a cold shoulder. Just twisting the knife in the boy

3) 2018

Dorothy dealing with her pause with Walky. Putting logic first.

2) 2017

And here we have Danny and AG/Amber fully killing their relationship. I would say it losses points for midfight instead of the start or end but hey, made it to number two

2014

And the one that started it all. That last line really just sells it.

[hagiomoto]

If David Willis want to make Asma a Muslim lesbian he better not make her leave Islam or anything like that we already have all of that in other fiction

Speaking as a Muslim lesbian myself

[gaiash]

12 Days of Christmas - Day 10. Desk Lady

Asma has been a popular supporting character in Dumbing of Age for a few years now, often winning the Patreon bonus strip polls. And now she's joined the main cast.

12 Days of Christmas

Previous Years: 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 2018-2019 2019-2020 2020-2021 2021-2022 2022-2023 2023-2024 2024-2025

Another Classic Webtoon Returns

Gekkomon

The Radio Demon

Sticks & Snikts

Another Nostalgic Regeneration

Sleeping KaruHina

The O is Silent

30 Years of Pokémon

Woman of Tomorrow

Desk Lady

It's Been 3000 Years

12 Years of Christmas

[bewareartbear]

baka times three

[she-who-is-two-sizes-too-big]

"What was i supposed to fo, continue repressing my attraction to Dorothy and by extension depriving me of a chance at meaningfully exploring my attraction to women beyond abstract thought experiments of a hypothetical past that will never happen?"

"Well, yeah."

Audience: "Wow, what a Le Epic Takedown of these evil nasty queer women, this is surely a just punishment and well-deserved fallout for the queer women for finally breaking free of the heteronormative shackles of patriarchal society shoving men in women's faces all the time.

In all seriousness, I get the intent behind what Asma is probably trying to say. Dorothy and Joyce objectively ended up hijacking attention away from a protest by kissing and making it all about themselves, albeit unintentionally. Joyce is in the wrong for that. Raidah actually already managed to make that point pretty effectively, but the rhetoric Asma is using makes it sound less like she's mad about that and more that she's upset at Joyce "sinning" and giving into temptation. It is positioning the act of kissing Dorothy as a thing Joyce should inherently avoid doing.

There are ways to call out Joyce and Dorothy accidentally being used to hijack coverage of a protest in a way that doesn't raise red flags. Giving religious-coded affirmations of Resisting Temptation is not the right way to do that, especially since it shouldn't really be a secret at this point in the comic that Joyce already came from a very repressive religious fundamentalist family that is largely responsible for a good majority if not all of her hangups about...everything, really, including her very obvious repression of her attraction to women.