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quarks

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  1. Kate and Anthony focused video - but it does seem to suggest that this season, Francesca might - might - have more than one line, and might - MIGHT - even have a tiny bit of plot! I shall try not to get my hopes up.
  2. Probably, assuming: 1. Josh manages to keep out of additional legal trouble while in prison. He apparently committed at least one infraction already, and I wouldn't rule out the possibility of another one, potentially leading to new charges. 2. Josh doesn't file any additional/collateral petitions. My understanding - which might be very wrong - is that if the Supremes don't take his case, he might still be able to file a claim alleging prosecutorial misconduct and/or ineffective defense counsel. I don't think there's evidence of either one. But given that Josh already decided not to spare his family and everyone else the costs of a trial, and then decided not to spare his family the costs of an appeal, I wouldn't put it past him to try this technique if he legally can, even without that evidence.
  3. Speaking as a bisexual, queer person, I miss the rainbow emoji already - even if, on this site, the rainbow emoji was mostly used to express thanks, not, YAY THIS SHOW IS SO QUEER! (Uh, not, obviously, Duggar related shows, but something like that one episode of The Last of Us.) When I've seen that anger emoji used on various Slacks, it's usually been used to express rage at the situation. For example, someone complaining about an incorrect medical bill, and others in that Slack responding with the anger emoji. I've never seen it used as a down vote - but the Slacks I'm on are all invite-only. I can see it creating potential problems on a site like this one, where anyone can join - especially given the topic.
  4. I think it can be very hard to completely cut any family member out of your life, no matter what that person did. Not impossible - obviously people do this every day - but hard. There's a 2023 documentary up on HBO Max right now, Great Photo, Lovely Life, exploring this. The family knows what their father/grandfather has done, and yet....they visit him. (Warning: I found that documentary very hard to watch, and, honestly, I'd recommend watching the Mary Tyler Moore documentary instead.) So that's one thing. But also, the Sun just says that he visited Josh, not why he visited Josh. A prayer session? A general family visit? To get a general sense of Josh's physical/emotional well-being? Or was it an attempt to ask Josh to stop with the court appeals after this Supreme Court thing? Or a hard discussion about family finances, with a Duggarling and a Waller coming along to verify/clarify that the Duggars/Wallers/Kellers cannot be expected to support Anna and the kids and Josh's ongoing legal bills? Joe, old enough to remember the financially tight pre-show times, and with four kids of his own, seems like a person who might want to make that argument. Meanwhile, I can't help noting that visits from the Duggar siblings are so rare that the Sun thinks they are newsworthy. And sure, that's partly because, hey, this is the Sun, which has a different definition of "newsworthy" than I do, but it still strongly suggests that most of the Duggars aren't bothering to come and visit Josh at all.
  5. Historically, they've reviewed about 1% of the cases appealed to them. So it's possible that they might decide to review this case. I just don't think it's very likely. Like, about a 1% chance.
  6. If you've ever used Slack, Discord is somewhat similar, although in my experience less user-friendly. You can post in real time, but also scroll back and catch up on conversations. It's also somewhat similar to Reddit, in that the quality/enjoyment of using any given Discord is heavily dependent on that particular Discord, the number of members, and the moderation. I've usually found little Discords (like ten people) to be ok, and larger discords (100 or more) to be virtually impossible for me to use. That said I am not exactly the most tech-savvy person out there. I suspect people who are better with computers than I am (which, let's face it, is almost everyone) have a better time on Discord and/or find it easier to use.
  7. Oh, and yes, this forum is very definitely one of my guilty pleasures. But it hasn't been just a guilty pleasure - it's been very helpful for me to read the different viewpoints here. I've learned a lot. I mean if I could transform myself to look anything like Kate/Simone Ashley I would be absolutely delighted.
  8. See, the problem with these rules for this forum, as opposed to, say, the Bridgerton forum, is that I'm honestly not sure how "self-transformation, global citizenship and kindness" can be regularly applied to a thread that's discussing a convicted criminal. It's possible that this CAN be done, but speaking for just me, I would need some guidance about how to get there.
  9. I don't think that anyone, including Josh, thinks this is necessarily a good idea. It's just his only legal option right now - other than just giving up. And although I don't think his attorneys needed to tell him, well, there's this thing called the Supreme Court, they do have to present him with all two of his current legal options. So this idea could have come from them, or Josh could have said, ok, Supreme Court's next, right? Honestly, I doubt the lawyers are really pushing for this. I think they are just filing the paperwork because Josh asked them to, and he is still their client. But they seem to be just doing their basic due diligence, nothing else. They aren't even trying to appeal on some of the major motions they raised prior to the trial - just on this pretty narrow thing about what questions they were allowed to ask one witness. This. The only real justifications I can see for doing this are: 1. Josh doesn't like being in jail (pull out the microscopic violins, everyone) 2. Josh and possibly other Duggars/Duggarlings (hi, Jim Bob) may feel that not appealing is an admission of guilt - after all, an innocent person would fight all the way to the Supreme Court, right?
  10. Influencers can get paid without giving out a discount code. She was making a point of shopping at various boutiques and eating at different restaurants. There's a non-zero chance she received some sort of kickback from at least some of those posts. The thing is, asking someone in Jinger's earnings situation in September about what her yearly earnings will be by the end of December 2021 is always, always going to be a guess. So I can't read that much into that. And it's also a pretty safe guess that her earnings fluctuated not just month by month, but year by year. Counting On aired 22 episodes in 2017; 18 episodes in 2018; 17 episodes in 2019; 12 episodes in 2020, and of course was cancelled in 2021. The "brand engagement' income may have taken a hit in 2020 for Covid-related reasons, creating more uncertainty. Her lawyers, though, let that six figure number into the deposition record, despite knowing that it was harmful to their case, so I don't think it was completely unfounded.
  11. It's an interesting question, isn't it - how exactly did she reach that six figure income, given in her September 2021 deposition, a statement that, given the timing, presumably reflected her 2020 tax statement/income? I agree with you that it wasn't the podcast - I don't think they made any money from that, presumably why they dropped it so quickly. Same with the cooking shows. But I also think it's very unlikely that the income she mentioned in September 2021 came mostly from the books. To start with, in September 2021, she and Jeremy only had the one book - The Hope We Hold - published by Hachette in May 2021. That book is still in print three years later and apparently selling a few copies per month over at Amazon, but I don't think that it earned out in its first couple of years, mostly because Hachette didn't publish the third book. Harper Collins did. The children's book, You Can Shine So Bright, wasn't published until 2022. It's possible that Jinger was referring to this book as well in her deposition, since she could have received part of the advance for that book in 2022 - but it's equally possible that Hachette held that part of the advance until returns started coming in for The Hope We Hold, which would not have started until September 2021 at the earliest. The third book, Becoming Free Indeed, published January 2023, was presumably sold at some point after November 2021, after Hachette's six month review of sales for The Hope We Hold. So any advance for that would not have been counted for her September 2021 deposition. (And there are solid reasons to think that she sold Becoming Free Indeed at some point after a certain criminal trial) Speaking of those advances: the typical advance for comparative books (memoirs by minor celebrities and/or Christian inspirational books) is somewhere between $60,000 to $120,000. For picture books, usually somewhere between $15,000 to $30,000, regardless of the author. Those books were credited to both Jinger and Jeremy; funds were either paid to them jointly or split. Those advances would have been split into at least three payments, more likely four, spread out over at least two years: one payment on signing (presumably 2019), one payment on delivery (2020), one payment on publication (2021) and possibly an additional payment post early returns (2022), which Hachette (and other Big Five publishers) can and does withhold depending upon sales. Let's assume, for a moment, that Jeremy and Jinger used their roles as "breakout stars" to negotiate a higher advance of $120,000 here, and that - somewhat unusually for Hachette - it was split into three payments and they received all three payments. That's $40,000 for the first book both of them - or $20,000 for Jinger - each year, before the agent cut of 10 to 15%. This fits in pretty well with the income Jeremy reported in his deposition - somewhere around $40,000, which sounds about right for a part time academic job, one or two speaking gigs, and that advance. It also fits in with what Jinger said - that she earned money from the show, "brand partnerships," and the book, apparently in that order, suggesting that as of September 2021, the book had earned less than the show and brand partnerships. I don't know if Jinger received any payments for the show in 2021. But she presumably did in 2020, when Counting On was still filming and on cable/streaming. The other big question is the amount. Presumably - TLC/Discovery/Jim Bob paid both her and Jeremy. Jeremy, though, reported a much lower income. So either they weren't paid the same amount - possible - or, the appearance fees were paid into an LLC, which later paid Jinger one amount and Jeremy another. The other oddity is that Jinger was the only one of the four sisters to report a six figure income. Granted, by September 2021 Jill had been off the show for some time, and at the time, Joy wasn't doing as much on social media, but neither of these applies to Jessa, and I don't think the book was enough to explain the gap between Jessa and Jinger. Those "brand partnerships" though, maybe. Not that any of those partnerships seemed to last long, but Jinger was paid in advance for them, and she had fairly sizeable social media numbers. I expect that did bring in something, which may help explain the discrepancies between her income, Jeremy's income (he was also trying "brand partnerships" at the time, but had far fewer followers on social media), and Jessa's income (lack of access to Los Angeles "brand partnerships.") For 2022 and 2023 though, after that deposition, and after Josh's trial, things may have switched, with the books bringing in more money than the "brand partnerships," which seem to have lessened considerably post-trial. And of course, the show money is gone. So for those years, her income may not have been in the six figures.
  12. They presumably had at least some cash from the sale of their Laredo house, the appearance fees from Counting On, and the advance from their first book. They also apparently spent their first couple of years in L.A. at a house owned by a church member; it's not clear if they were paying any rent. Given all that, they were presumably able to put down a sizeable down payment. Jeremy does have some sort of part-time job at that school - I doubt it pays all that much, but, hey, steady employment. And when Jinger testified in that civil trial, she stated that she was earning somewhere in the low six figures from various influencing gigs.
  13. I think the income situation varies from Duggarling to Duggarling. I suspect, for instance, that money may be tight for John David and Abbie - I'm not sure how many students are eager to study with a flight instructor who didn't check the fuel levels on his plane, and crashed, and I'd be surprised if the Medic Corpse stuff is paying him much of a salary. Thus Abbie maybe/possibly currently working as a nurse again, and definitely shilling that hair stuff for some added money. And although Jessa and Ben seemed to have no problems buying toys for their kids, their main income seems to be what Jessa is making from social media, which based on her court testimony a couple years back, doesn't seem to be that much. They don't seem to be doing a lot of traveling. Jason seems to be more financially stable. Multiple media outlets have reported that he has made some money on real estate deals and building houses on property owned by his brothers, and claims to do at least some work between these trips. So there's at least some income/assets there. Meanwhile, he doesn't have kids; he doesn't have to pay rent or a mortgage; he doesn't have to pay for health insurance; he's had no major medical expenses that we know of; and he doesn't have tuition payments or student loans. It's also at least possible that he's looking at his older siblings with kids and figuring he should travel now, while he's still young, in decent health, and with few responsibilities.
  14. He's made at least some money in real estate, has very few monthly bills, and is traveling in the off season. And if he does have any sort of work ethic, he's hiding it well.
  15. Oh, sure. But to be fair, that reduced engagement is true across the board right now - with pretty much everyone from celebrities to government officials to people chatting about kittens reporting a major drop in engagement on multiple social networks. So that's probably not as big of an issue as it once was. The bigotry and the apparent complete inability to sound sincere about anything, plus the pseudointellectualism, are, I think, bigger problems. Or maybe they just irritate me more. But even with those problems, Jinger apparently earned somewhere in the low six figures in 2017 from various sponsored social media things. The huge reduction in posts makes me think that she's probably earning considerably less than that now, but it does demonstrate that working as Christian influencers isn't completely unrealistic for them.
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