Couldn't Be THAT Bad
oh no babby Anh :'(
Comments (82)
🥺
Oh, lord. Anh had to wear one of those orthodontic torture devices. Talk about adding injury to insult.
BUT, the Anh-hoge is there in its incipient splendor.
I bet she went to an all-girls boarding school. It would explain so much.
Hug that girl, dammit. She needs help.
So I have this theory that boarding school is mostly a European culture thing and some North American places adopted it admiring it and others were thinking every one going to college has to live in a dorm their first year so why not get 7th graders used to that so they’re used to it in college? I had no idea kids who went to boarding school would be the most messed up by the time college rolled around.
Oh this is the truth. Although the food was good. I was lucky *not* to be boarding but there was the odd weekend I stayed there. This is why I lived exclusively in single rooms in college...
This explains so much about Anh. Teen-age Anh looks so vulnerable and bewildered. I feel so sad for her younger self, and indeed, for her present self. She needs all the caring and understanding that Faye and Bubbles (and everyone else) can give her to help her heal as best she can. I think healing will be possible, but it won't be easy.
Politician turned political podcaster Rory Stewart recently said something about how because he'd been to boarding school, when he was in awful conditions in the army in Afghanistan he was like "yes, this is familiar, I can manage this" and I thought that was profoundly sad. Also I accidentally posted this on the Dumbing of Age Patreon this morning somehow instead of here.
In the phenomenal critique of education "Dumbing us Down" the author notes that in pre-industrial societies, it was common for pre-teens and teens to be thoroughly mixed with adults, to a ratio of 2 adults per child. He notes glibly that the worst thing you could probably do for the social and emotional development of middle schoolers is put 20 of them in a room together with a single adult. Boarding schools sound like this mistake multiplied by 11. Anh's privilege in know way justifies that clear and significant neglect that she seems to have suffered, raised not by carrying adults, but by her similarly neglected peers. You'd think having enough money to enjoy a life of leisure would lead to parents spending MORE time with their children, but it's more often the opposite, it seems.
The effects of having enough money probably depend a lot on how you got it. Mr Dang clearly gained his fortune through ruthless business empire-building (or, as he’d put it, he worked for it). That makes “ruthless businessman” his self-identification, which isn’t an identity that leaves much scope for decent parenting. And it sounds like Mrs Dang gained access to that money by being a trophy wife or similar — and the point of *that* identity is not to get bogged down in boring stuff such as parenting.
Oh Bubbles, you can always gargle someone else’s tootsies
Not sure about the US, but as someone who went a british boarding school, I can confirm it's bad! like soooo much worse than you're imagining. That 1000 yard stare is the 'good' reaction.
Huh, because I went to a public school that doubled as a boarding school, and found it annoying but mostly okay. My friends who were boarders also didn't seem massively traumatised. Maybe it depends on the school...
Took me too long to realize Faye was talking about toes and not farts.
"gargle my toots" is a veeery different website. Pintsize is a platinum level subscriber.
I'm sure tootsies could be a retrofit option they could offer
Union Robotics probably buys tootsies by the roll.
Sounds like Anh's mom isn't great, either.
Wait, Bubbles doesn't have...toes?
Her feet have permanent sock syndrome, IIRC...
Well now *that's* a turn of phrase.
Not sure I know anyone who went of boarding school. Know a few kids who went to the Catholic school. There were the Catholic Kids who typically wouldn't talk to kids from the 'sinner schools' and Troubled Youth who were sent to the Catholic school, shared information and ideas with the other Troubles Youth, and came out 10 times worse.
For the latter type, see Sal over in "Dumbing Of Age."
Being a teenager might suck, but you know what sucks more? Paying bills. (and tax)
Depends on what your teens were like. Personally, given the choice, I'll take the bills.
Noooo, not the around the head braces! Poor Anh...
And a whooooole bunch of acne, if you zoom in. Poor kid 😞
I feel so bad for Anh. She's not a bad person, she's just SUPREMELY fucked up, and worse, she's aware of that.
Knowing one's own fucked-upness is hard, but it's a start. Indeed, as G.I. Joe taught me, it is "half the battle".
WHAT DO YOU MEAN BUBBLES DOESN'T HAVE ANY GRIPPERS, JEPH??
BUBBLES YOU ARE A CHASSIS MECHANIC, IF YOU WANT TOOTSIES YOU CAN SURELY FABRICATE THEM
As it is unexpectedly relevant to todays comic, here's a glimpse into the sort of thing my brain does when I get bored. I give you the actual note from my notes app, "QC AI by foot configuration": (With reference strips. The number in square brackets indicates successive chassis) Toes: Beepatrice[3] #4773 Iris #4725 #4727 May[2] #4600 Momo[1] after #1496 Momo[3] #5051 Moray X-21 (usually) #4923 Yay (implied) #3922 Yay (virtual) #5384 Winslow[2] #4061 Big Toe Only: Millefeuille #4081 Pintsize[2] (briefly) #1498 Roko[2] #4773 No Toes: Arthur #3486 Bubbles #3564 Corpse Witch #3406 Crushbot #3900 Jeremy (post upgrade) #3431 May[1] #3846 Melon #3486 Momo[1] before #1496 Moray X-21 (occasionally) #5354 Nelson #3954 Pintsize[1] #1 Pintsize[2] #60 Pintsize[3] #5179 Punchbot #3171 Roko[1] #3567 Winslow[1] #590 No Feet: Director #4943 Gary #2430 Gordon #3028 Jeremy (originally) #3421 Moray X-21 (briefly) #5201 & #5582 Reggie #3542 Roomba #5463 Station (physical body) #2111 Unknown: Evan Lemon (but presumably same as Melon) May[0] (VR avatar) Momo[2] Station (hologram avatar) Winslow[1.5] (temporary "boyfriend" prototype) Zlata
This may be the first time we've had footnotes in the comments section.
Bubbles remade to the joy of Quintin Tarantino. ~<3
Her adolescence gives me a big Mallory and Sterling Archer vibe.
She was so dorky I love her
I'd still put bubbles' feet in my mouth, tootsies or not
Before I realized I had the option, I knew that I would send any potential future children I had to boarding school… what a blessing it is to have the ability to be child free by choice.
In case anyone else is as dumb as me & struggled half as hard to figure out what "gargle the tootsies" means, it means Faye put her foot in her mouth, metaphorically speaking #TheMoreYouKnow
Thank you, Pejo. I was indeed puzzled. Not turning over on all cylinders today.
Jeez, what must it be like in the UK with their "Public" schools?
Look for a documentary called Tompkinson's School Days. It'll sort you out.
As a former boarding school kid, can confirm 🙃
And remember, peeps, it's spelled "Anh". Posting it in advance this time so nobody feels personally attacked.
She spells her name with An H.
You do too possess tootsies, Bubbles. It is not clear, though, whether you possess the proper gargulatorium.
I hear that having a gargulatorium is the latest craze amongst Imperium nobility.
Anh’s parents are the suck. Many parenting conversations in the past few weeks, no one has come close to being as suck as they were and are. Suck.
The most suck characters in all of QC, including the Roomba.
Some memories Anh doesn't want to retain.
What you did there. I see it.
Some old friends of my parents sent their kids to boarding school so they'd have a "more stable" life during their teens -- the parents were diplomatic corps and moved around a lot. It wasn't the worst version of that story I've heard, but what stuck with me is that when these parents finished their posting years and were ready to settle down and have a family life again, it was too late. The kids weren't hostile to them or anything, but they were in their late teens by then and basically the years when family barbeques and movie nights would have been a big deal for them had been and gone.
My mother and her twin sister came from a long line of Quaker doctors, and the two of them were sent to boarding school in their teens, because their parents had been sent to boarding school, because that was just what families in East Coast US did back then if they were even somewhat upper class. I now think it really hurt her ability to relate to people in later life, and especially to relate to her kids. (OTOH I had the moving-around upbringing for much of my childhood, and that wasn't great either for *my* ability to keep friendships and maintain them at a distance.)
When the scene has been changed And the cast rearranged That's A Moray!
A+ doing one when Moray isn't in the strip xD
Bangs for the memories
For reference regarding Bubbles lack of tootsies: https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4899
We need Bubbles wearing tank treads.
I've known a bunch of people who went to boarding schools. They're all very different. The only thing they have in common is an iron commitment not to send their kids to boarding school.
I had one a friend in highschool who got sent to a fancy boarding school for a year, and it sounded **so** horrific.
I actually thought "tootsies" were "feet" and not "toes", is that just me? I gather that everyone else had the correct interpretation.
"Tootsies" has definitely always meant to feet for me. I didn't know that it means toes some other folks, apparently.
No one is immune to foot in mouth disease. No one. And please don’t use the magic summoning phrase ‘You had it easy because …’
Kids these days. They got it so easy. Not like in my day. Why, we hadn't even had the Big Bang yet.
Poor teen Anh.
Wait, shouldn't kids that rich have servants?
I mean, they have someone paid to drive Anh around...
FAnhcy Pants.
Actually, it appears to be a FAnhcy Skirt with FAnhcy Leggings.
Also, the little insect keyring on her bag feels like such a heartbreaking detail for some reason </3
Bold of Jeph to canonically state that Bubbles doesn't have tootsies to gargle. The fandom will take up arms.
We've seen this depicted visually before ^^
Bubbles doesn’t have toes?! How does she balance and walk and run?
Gyros
That flashback has the worst parts of Harry Potter and The Princess Diaries combined.
Does this mean bubs feet look like socks?
We have in fact seen them, and they do! (I can picture the strip, but it's way too late for me to go hunting for it xD)
Awww, bb Anh. Nice to see she had the Anhoge from the start xD
This is why kids who grew up rich are the most normal people ever
As any climatologist would tell you, “normal” is just the average of all the weird weather conditions so I don’t believe any one person is “normal.”
Poor baby!!!