Hi willis, I'm a new reader to DoA, and I have to say, your comic speaks to me in a way few have. Growing up poor, I spent most of my life in foster care with my two sisters. Many homes didn't care, some did, and some....well...
I spent 3 years in a home with a militant dutch christian family. Until that point I was 'mostly' catholic, but didn't really know details. However, living with them, going to a christian private school...I learned how cruel people could be. My littlest sister was spoiled, while my other sister and I were literally tortured, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I would be locked in my room at night, unable to leave no matter what(no matter how sick I got). during the day, instead of being allowed to play, I was forced into grueling manual labour, from sweeping a straw-filled barn(and being punished if I missed anything), to carrying straw bales as big as I was from another barn several hundred metres away. If I finished those tasks, I was forced into even more pointless tasks, such as moving a large pile of soil from one side of a lot to another, and back again. all the while, my sister got to play. if I misbehaved, they got creative with their punishments: whether it was running laps for hours on end, sometimes on gravel with bare feet, to having my hands bound tightly and removing my dexterity, or in extreme cases being almost drowned in the bathtub full of ice water. All the while, I had scripture quoted at me, and I spent many nights sobbing in bed, pleading with god to forgive me.
when I was 11 I finally got free of that home, and by 15 I had completely forsaken christianity. however, at that time I also ended up coming out, and one of my only friends came out as being a trans woman. eventually, we moved in together, and despite her unsupportive family, I helped motivate her into transitioning--she's now been living full-time as a woman for almost 3 years and is waiting to schedule her SRS.

Thanks to my upbringing as a foster child, I've endured all sorts of racism. Being of mixed arabic and native ethnicity, I've been discriminated for being 'too white' and I've been discriminated for being 'too black'. I've been told to go back where I came from, and I've dealt with absolutely horrible horrible people. Does this mean I think my experiences are the worst thing ever, and nobody else's experiences can compare? No. Different does not always mean inferior. A child with an abusive, alcoholic dad still has a lot of trauma. I'll never be able to fully relate to a trans person, even if I have encountered discrimination for my attraction to the same sex.

So now, reading your comic, and seeing how you depict white fundamentalist christians....it genuinely angers me. I've dealt with racism, bigotry, and some of the worst that humanity has to offer. I've been reduced to acting like an animal while having scripture quoted at me...but I've also learned that despite everything that's happened to me, that's not what organized religion stands for. christianity brings a lot of happiness to a lot of people, and while I can never forget the trauma I suffered in the name of god, neither do I bear a grudge against all the other wonderful christians I've met in my life. Your comic very clearly has a bias, and you cite having horrible experiences due to your religion...and that's what angers me. you had culture shock going into college, and I can respect that--I myself have a lot of issues with commitment and responsibility due to my upbringing, and I've dropped out of college and lived well below the poverty line as a result. But I still don't blame my parents, and I don't blame christianity. Regardless of what I went through, my decisions, and my mistakes, are mine alone. when I interact with others, I recognize that their opinions only affect me as much as I want them to, and choosing to discriminate against people based on their beliefs, or depicting entire religious groups as caricatures is not how I choose to live my life.

And herein lies why dumbing of age speaks to me. It angers me, because there is so much potential in your comic. I like a LOT of the characters, and even in many of the characters I dislike, I can see potential for improvement to turn them into realistic, understandable, and relatable characters. However, as long as you remain steadfast in your refusal to acknowledge constructive criticism and hold onto your bigotry(yes, you can be bigoted against majority groups), your comic will never fully reach the potential that I believe you can achieve.

Feel free to delete my comment, ban me, or misconstrue the things I say. I endured horrible, horrible things due to some horrible people who had a warped view on their religion. To this day, I'm not a christian, but I'm also not against people who are. I won't pray with them, but I will sit patiently and wait for them to pray. I won't go to church with them, but I'll spend time with them and discuss their beliefs with them as adults. I can accept negative criticism and insults because we live in the age of information: there are ALWAYS going to be people who disagree with you. Most of the time, they're going to do nothing but use expletives and mock you, but even if they do, many of them may have something of worth to pay attention to, whether it's loud idiots on facebook, posters on reddit, or even people on 4chan. I've been in threads talking about your comic on all sorts of 'hate' sites, and aside from the loud idiots, even people on 4chan recognize that you CAN BE a talented writer at times.