lascuba

Seriously, that was my very first thought when I heard the news.

I'm just starting to catch up on the Rods after not having paid much attention to them since Tim started courting and...to say I'm shocked that Tim would be the one to draw any sort of boundaries with Jill is an understatement. Wow, this is going to be a fun rabbit hole. I find it really interesting how many fundies seem to be fighting back against public displays of "purity" and are now insisting that whatever a couple decides to save for marriage is private. Is it a general shift in the culture, like women wearing pants? Is it a distaste for how weird the public bragging of "saving myself for marriage" is, especially after the Duggars and Bates brought it to tv audiences? Is it just a dislike for Jill in particular that has people reacting that way? The obsession with sex and purity has been central to fundamentalism for decades so I find the reactions to Jill's posts fascinating.

Jessa didn't throw a fit, it was a couple of Jessica's relatives who did. The most critical thing Jessa said was something like, "Yeah, it's kind of low" about one of the dresses when the bride asked for opinions.

Oh, definitely. I think that would be a big issue even if their personalities meshed well, which they don't. Jessa was going to have those struggles no matter who she married, but marrying a boy who was expecting a happily submissive wife and having to constantly make an effort to soothe his ego has to be draining. Ben was expecting the show and family fame to launch his apocalyptic preacher career and when that didn't happen, he couldn't/wouldn't pivot. So now he can't provide and resents his marriage for it. A big part of me blames the show, honestly. The family was doing an excellent job of keeping the courtship under wraps until Ben's aunt outed them. Once that happened, there was no way they could get away with not having the first Duggar daughter courtship televised. I think that relationship would have died a natural death if it weren't for that.

I hate to give JB even the tiniest pinch of credit, but he was right in his seeming hesitance towards Ben, and I really wish he'd pulled the "umbrella of authority card" and nipped that relationship in the bud early. I have my theories as to why he didn't, but regardless of the reasons--and not to discount Jessa's faults--I genuinely believe that her marriage to Ben is at the heart of her current issues.

Beautiful dress! I'm not normally a fan of that neckline but I'm a sucker for a low back. And as always with fundie brides, I wish she'd worn her hair up. Not surprised that Jill wasn't MOH or in the wedding party at all. Even setting aside the money-feud with JB and the subsequent memoir, I never got the sense that Jill and Jana were actually close, they were just thrown together as the two oldest girls. Jill was always close to the siblings she raised but not the ones that were her peers. I wouldn't have guessed Jessa as the MOH, but I'm not really surprised either. Based on glimpses of their interactions on the show and social media, they seemed to get along well. And Jessa and Jana were the ones consistently described as very strong-willed children...as a former strong-willed child with 2 sisters and a lot of cousins, fighting like cats and dogs as children and becoming really close as adults makes complete sense me.

So the wedding was today? I always thought that when/if Jana got engaged, the public wouldn't know about it until after the wedding if she had her way. It looks like she almost pulled it off. Good for her. I'm not one to feel celebratory over another fundie wedding, but I'm genuinely happy that she was able to mostly avoid public attention throughout her engagement/wedding. If we get engagement and wedding pictures in People, I take back my last paragraph.

Derick probably still has missionary dreams and since he can't do that, nor is anyone clamoring to put him back on TV, he figures a podcast where there's no one to censor him is the next best thing.

Twitter lets people delete replies now? Because that would explain a lot.

A LOT of people left twitter in the months after EM bought it. I don't know about fundie/snark twitter specifically, but it wouldn't surprise me if most of the people who stuck around are the type to be just fine with bigoted rants. And even those that normally wouldn't be, many people are so invested in the "moving on" narrative that they'll forgive anything.

This was my immediate thought as well. He's the type to get really excited about a career and then bail when the the day to day realities of the work get boring. The thing he seems to most consistently like is the attention he gets from running his mouth.

My nephew is graduating high school this year yet somehow that doesn't make me feel as old as the reminder of Jordyn and Josie's ages.

All she needs is an apprenticeship and passing the Certified Professional Neurosurgery exam!

I'm kind of surprised she would say this. She did EMT training years ago and dropped that. And then she did the doula thing so she could be Jill's accountability partner, even though it looked like she really didn't enjoy it. I wonder what kind of "medical stuff" she has in mind.

Offensive to fundies?