satrunrose

I suspect that if something were to happen to still David's sweet grunts while the waifs are still waifish then we're going to get the full-blown Victorian mourning treatment. Think of the grifting possibilities! Jill, the poor young (lol) widow and her poor impoverished children with no brave headship to protect (aka pay for them) in this wicked world. If the kids are grown, I can either see Jill finding herself a new mark as fast as she can, or do her own version of moving into a child's house for a few months, milking her poor widow status and making them absolutely miserable before the kid in question finally breaks and sends her off to the next Rodlet.

She got Severely cut while opening the can. It was like the attack of the upstairs attic throw rug with 90% more satan.

I think it also underscores who the golden child in the family was and how little value anyone else had. The goal of that interview was to downplay what had happened and show two happily married, well-adjusted daughters, who were doing quite well thank-you-very-much until In Touch came along. If Josh hadn't have been right there they might have managed it. Instead, fairly or un, we end up with the impressions of Jill and Jessa that have lasted until the present day; Jessa as the emotionless b- and family apologist and Jill as the fragile one who wasn't supported when she needed it. The narrative of shiny, happy Duggars could have gone on a lot longer if JB wasn't such a completely destructive idiot.

Yes, there's an undertone of something I don't quite like in the repeated stories of evil Native American spirits coming to kill the settlers (sometimes they add a dash of voodoo for variety).

I can see it. Tyler is almost an adult and while he still needs parental figures, he doesn't need physical caretaking in the same way he did when he was a kid. I'm interested to see who originated the change and I feel badly if the kid is having another upheaval if it isn't what he wants, but can you imagine life in the TTH right now? The Lost Girls in the "sit around and wait to get married" season of life, Anna and the Ms maybe realizing that J'Inmate isn't coming home, JB (and Michelle?) who between SHP and Jill's tell-all are now fighting with Josh to be the villains of the Duggar story, the remaining Howlers mostly out of the house and Jana...Jana-ing, I guess. It's not where I'd want to be if I had any other options.

It pains me so, so much to say this, but I'm going to say Jeremy's not quite as bad as everyone's favourite cousin. He, at least, is directly involved in the Duggar circus, he's mentioned favourably in the book and he didn't spend a year ranting on SM about giving a voice to victims and then did absolutely nothing about it before switching to the latest incarnation of Amy: the frazzled mommy blogger.

Good lord, Jana could very possibly have 15 years of fraudulent tax filings lurking behind her. On the other hand, if the empire folds, it's only Jill and Derrick, Jinger and Jeremy, Joy and Austin and Justin and Claire who aren't totally screwed, right? Are there any other kids who don't work for Daddy, at least indirectly?

It's not a bad strategy, really. Jinger's book appeals to the sympathetic christian ex-fan of the show (triumphing over adversity through Jesus) and Jill's to the snarkers. The only chunk of the (former) audience that you're missing is the leghumpers, who have written off Jill and Jinger anyway.

Okay, I'm even more curious about the kiddult finances now, particularly for Jessa, Anna and Jed!. The $80,000 payout makes sense for the way most of the crew has been living. It's not high on the hog, but it's a step better than you would expect given the combo of jobs they seem to do. On the other hand, Anna doesn't have any income coming in, Jessa is raising four, soon five, kids on a minister's salary for a very small church and Jed! has managed to rack up the expenses for a wedding, two babies and multiple expensive trips in less than two years. Does JB have an itemised bill like that for them?

Enough to buy a theatre in a tourist town after the show shut down and he spent a bundle on J'Inmate's legal bills.

Oh, so all Derrick's complaints about medical bills were about JB not TLC. That makes sense.

I wondered that too, although I think that in Jessa's mind the goal is to make her children look brilliant and precocious without realizing it actually makes either the child or the household look pretty messed up. (See the sayings of Spurgeon about marriage and theology).

I think I believe it. Three reasons: 1- She grew up a lot in the early years of her marriage (random shower rack attacks in Danger America notwithstanding) and part of that journey to adulthood is seeing things that seemed perfectly normal at the time through different eyes. This is particularly likely as Jill started to move from fundie to (very) conservative and went to therapy. 2- Wasn't the Ashley Madison scandal after the Kelly interview? Imagine, putting your pain out there for the world to see, but believing what your parents and church told you: That this was a satanic attack that happens in "a lot of families" and now Josh was cured thanks to the correct Jesus. Except... not so much. So now, not only does everyone know what happened, you and your family go from wholesome family fame to the punchline of every joke about fundie hypocrisy. 3- Yes, Jill did stand up for her abuser brother and, apparently, her thanks for that was to be verbally attacked by her father for... checks notes... wearing pants and piercing her nose. That would have been my last straw too.

And this is why my very favourite fundie posts are the "see how normal we are" ones, because they are unintentionally so much weirder than actual day in the life posts. If Jessa had just kept her big posting finger shut, no one would be particularly asking about the Seawald's take on all this (or at least no more than we're asking about Joy, JD, Joe, Josiah, Jinger etc). Now the internet is a buzz with just how a four-year-old knows to make a more or less in context comment about nazis.

The only slim, slim positive I can pull is that at least the girls are (allegedly) using it in a negative way. I mean, seriously, I thought the whole point of homeschooling/homechurching was to protect the poor innocent children from the badness of the (liberal) world. 🤨

You know, I'm so impressed that Jilldo managed to hold off a whole, what, 30-36 hours on spilling stuff about Timbits after she said she wouldn't post about their lives and milestones anymore. It must have been the longest day and a half of her life! /sooo much sarcasm

I haven't decided whether I want to reserve a copy yet or not, but I am interested to see more about Michelle in all this. The internet snarker community has been debating for years whether she's the secret brains of the operation (see JiiRod) or trapped like the kids (see Pepsi "addict" Teri Maxwell). From the excerpt, it seems like Michelle was distressed by the confrontation and she does still have at least some relationship with Jill. Maybe she's more of a victim than we thought... or not. I'm interested to see what comes out.

I have a very sneaky suspicion that one of the reasons andKaylee was so (completely independently and with no influence whatsoever from Jilldo) keen to stay close to home was to get a new supply of fresh waifs as Mahmo's own children aged out. I really wish Mahmo would leave her alone. Sunshine girl isn't looking well here.

With all of the whirlwind changes of life, it's nice to see that the Dillard's awkward kissing pics stay the same.

I love how they misspelled gospel (hospel) in the second line. It's also a little unclear, they say the undergraduate part is for men, but the "ladies" (siiiiigh) masters program says it follows the undergraduate part.

I would love to think that the long range plan was making a nice space for Ma and Pa (I think it would work sans bunkbed). Unfortunately, all of Jill's "lovingly" decorated spaces for her children have the 90s grandma chic style, so I don't think we can be sure. I would honestly love to be a fly on the wall on there shopping trips. Does Jill do it all and then pull out the camera to film the kid faking enthusiasm for the god awful decor? Do they play an elaborate game of warmer/colder at the thrift store (Sam reaches for a poster of a sports ball player, sees Jill frown, reaches for the silk flower basket)? Worst of all, did Jill actually manage, through general awfulness, to brainwash her kids into believing that they like this stuff?

My guess is it goes back to fetishising ye olden days when women wore t-shirt blouses and baseball bonnets and manly, arm-wrestling boys knew the value of a good silk flower arrangement and trinket box.

Do you think Joy knows that neither of her parents could have ever written that detailed of a description about her?

You know, if this was the upstairs attic, I would say it makes a decent guest room (too many artificial flowers and not at all my taste, but it's not unusual decor). For teenage boys, especially teenage boys who Jill must insist are hyper-masculine it's... odd...

I can never decide whether this makes me sad, because at least Tim and Phillip's "convictions" gave them the chance to get out of Rodville, state capital of Griftonia in the Land of the Hypocrites, or relieved that no Hungarians will be tormented by happy face pamphlets (which Tim will accidentally drop on someone's head, along with his cds).