Julia Benally's Blog

Item one: The story was inspired from a weird out at a real ranch that I went to.

Item two: They were playing The Beach Boys.

Item three: Not sure where the main character came from.

Item four: I had issues with the creepy Christmas lights floating around the place.

Item five: I took out some of the structures and added my own, but the gas pump and nasty green marshmallow salad was there, along with the locked pop case in the creepy shed.

Item six: Cousin Lucas's appearance was based on a guy who used to live down the street.

Item seven: I mentioned covid in passing and chuckled, because lost of magazines made it taboo to mention it. Since I'm flying solo, ha!

Item eight: Lorelei's rambling didn't need much editing.

Item nine: Men who don't take care of their beards look like Big Foot.

Item ten: The part of the dance where everyone was dressed like trashy cowboy and cowgirl was based on a 4th of July dance that I went to and lived to regret. It was in a barn and it smelled like a cow in there.

Item eleven: Nobody believes a word I say, so nobody would believe Lorelei.

Item twelve: Lindsey's voice entered my head and I couldn't get it out. I'm sure I've heard it somewhere and it annoyed me to no end.

Item thirteen: Old men wanting Lorelei to inherit their grandchildren is a true story.

Item fourteen: Big 'N' Hairy Ranch is one of my favorites.

Faith is not bravado, not just a wish, not just a hope. True faith is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ—confidence and trust in Jesus Christ that leads a person to follow Him.
But If Not …
By Elder Dennis E. Simmons of the Seventy
April 2004 general conference from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Why are so many female characters such garbage? Annoying, selfish, ungrateful--and yet those in their stories seem to love and respect them.

"What a woman!" When she pulls apart a gun he needs because she can't handle weapons of cruelty--then she'd better shut her mouth, because witty shouldn't be cruelty. She better not opt for a bow and arrow, either, because those really hurt.

"I can respect that" with a stupid grin on his face after she gives a spiel on modern sentiments--which, by the way belong to a small percentage of the population--in a time period where that didn't exist.

"That's some woman!" Because she slaps him for saving her stupid life--ingrate, die already.

Ever want to work with someone like that? What five-letter word comes to mind instead? Men and women both hate her.

How about a complete wretch bringing up old news in a time and place where that issue didn't exist? Or in a time and place where that would have gotten her raped and murdered? Or in a time and place where that was totally impossible because of the mind set?

You want to make a lovable female character, let's start out with NOT making her a billboard for petty ideas. Women have enough to deal with without being objectified further. What women deal with is far more than catcalls and men trying to be sexist to them.

Those things are around, but they're more like annoying flies and not an all-encompassing woe. Not all women deal with those things, either. If I read about a woman being cat-called, I couldn't relate. I've never been cat-called, not even when I was working in my tribe's casino. Reading about a recipe gone wrong, I can relate. Not everything is men versus women.

Women are misunderstood. Their writers don't understand that she thinks differently, that she has to accommodate for her smaller size and that she's physically weaker than a man. A woman approaches situations differently.

If you want to see that difference, compare men's volleyball with women's volleyball. Go watch baseball and softball. You can see the difference. Strength, endurance, mind games, tactics, all are different. Ways of throwing the ball. How sets pan out.

My brothers' had a good perspective. In women's volleyball, the women hit that ball back forth for a long time and it's all nice. The men throw bombs at each other.

Both are fun to watch. One is not better than the other. That's what writers mistake. Belittling and weakening men to make the woman look good is an insult to the men and an insult to the woman. They're telling her that she can't hold her own because she's a woman. They don't appreciate her divine nature. They don't like who she is. They hate her feminine gifts.

A woman is love. Not sex. She's family oriented. She takes care of those she loves. This is her core, notwithstanding whatever personality or adventure you give her. Destroy that core and you get a selfish wretch that nobody likes. Destroy that core and she's nothing. She has no depth.

I once ran across a magazine warning their writers that if their female character was protecting a child or had a love interest, that they would reject the story without considering how good it was. She had to be a big blah with man powers because her woman powers were weak.

Why did Ellen Ripley from the first two Alien movies work, but flopped in the last ones? She could kick butt. It's because they took her core away. Why did Sarah Connor from Terminator 1 and 2 work, but fall to pieces in the others? She was totally cool and badness unleashed, especially in the second movie. So what happened? They took her core away. Both were turned into little men.

I suppose this magazine would have rejected these iconic stories because the women in them were family oriented. Friendship oriented. Their hearts were open. Both at some point protected a child.

A woman loves men. She thinks they're hot and really cool. She enjoys watching them be cool. She gets crushes on them. Her heart beats to his voice, especially his singing voice. When he does something kind for her, she runs to her friends and tells them in ecstasies about what he did. Do women like John Wick or that She-Hulk thing more? John Wick, of course.

Women are silly and funny, but you have to catch them on their own turf, not try to turn them into little men with mannish jokes that don't even come off funny from a man's lips. Rachel Lynn from Anne of Green Gables is funny. Those ridiculous characters from the Jane Austen books are funny. There are numerous female characters in Anime who are funny.

Women, if anybody cares to really look at them, are cute. Not as in hot and sexy cute--there's been enough of that--but cute, like the first seasons of "My Little Pony." Like Nezuko from Demon Slayer. Little gestures of happiness far different from a man's. Things that please her are different from a man's, and it's not "She loves shopping and he doesn't." Some women hate it, but now it's become, "She hates shopping because she's a little man." You can't make her a little man if you're going to have a female character people love.

Many women enjoy shooting guns, hunting, watching football and sports, and eating junk food. In none of these do they enjoy it as a little man. They enjoy it as a woman. Just because she likes these things doesn't make her heartless and cruel. It means she's unique.

Also--GIVE HER A CHARACTER ARC. Give her weaknesses she must deal with or overcome. Give her a past full of human emotion. Women are emotional, not arrogant sex toys with stupid messages written across their selfish foreheads. She doesn't have to have the man's job to be great. She doesn't have to be a scientist to be smart. She doesn't have to have that wrung out idiom of "She kicks butt!" all over her. Is there no human being behind that phrase? Usually not, and no personality worth mentioning, either.

Let your female character learn and grow, to become something great--not already great with everything handed to her. Make her work for it like everyone else. Make her battle her obstacles. Throw in everything that twists the emotions into a million directions as she battles to win her inner demons and disabilities. Let it be deep and worth something real.

I can go on and on, but I suppose there is one sure way to be able to make your female character loveable if you're having trouble. Remember her as a daughter of God and all the good that goes with it. Loving, caring, sweet, gentle, humble, self-sacrificing, unselfish, funny, cute, responsible, thankful, uncomplaining, and full of faith.

She can be tough without carrying a shield. She can be vivacious without being a slut. Her strength is different. Hers is caring for the sick on long horrible nights. Hers is bearing children in excruciating pain. Hers is self-sacrifice and love where it is hard to love. Her strength is inside, stalwart, unwavering, resilient.

You want a tough woman, turn to the stories in your own family--your grandma, your great grandma, your mother, your aunts, cousins, great aunts, your ancestors, or stories of real women during wartime, the pioneer days, days of American slavery, women among the Native Americans, those during the Great Depression, those that worked and suffered for something more than "my life is so hard because of cat calls, even though I'm filthy rich and could never endure anything harder than a broken dishwasher."

All these evolved around their family.

Destroy the value of a family in her story is to destroy her.

Remember what a woman is: a daughter of the Most High God. What does Heavenly Father value in her? And you will have a lovable female character.

I was studying the "Come Follow Me" book from my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and I was brought to Isaiah 53. It's about the sorrows and sins that Jesus Christ bore for us.

It said that while I'm reading, to replace "we" and "our" with "I" and "my." So I did, and here is a snippet of what it looked like.

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and (I) hid as it were (my) face from him; he was despised, and (I) esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne (my) griefs, and carried (my) sorrows; yet (I) did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for (my) transgressions, he was bruised for (my) iniquities; the chastisement of (my) peace was upon him; and with his stripes (I am) healed.
After I read the whole chapter like that, I felt like a worthless punk. How could He love someone so cheap as myself?
As soon as I thought it, the clearest impression came to me: "Because you are my baby."
We all of us are His babies.

This Saturday and Sunday is General Conference. It's special to me. It makes me happy and peaceful.
I want to share that happiness with you. So I invite you to come listen to the words of our Heavenly Father. He has a special message just for you. You will find peace, what you need to hear, instruction, clarification, and most of all, the love of the Savior, and know that you're not forgotten.
Here are the ways to come listen and the details: Click Here
This is for General Conference activities for children and youth: Click Here
I also have the details here below:
We welcome you to participate in the general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This global, religious broadcast aims to help individuals strengthen their personal relationships with Jesus Christ to experience the peace, hope, and joy that come through following Him. Join with millions of people worldwide to hear inspiring messages from living prophets and apostles.
The global broadcast will originate from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
The conference consists of five two-hour sessions happening on Saturday and Sunday, October 1–2, 2022:
Saturday, October 1
10:00 a.m. (MDT) morning session2:00 p.m. afternoon session6:00 p.m. evening session
Sunday, October 2
10:00 a.m. morning session2:00 p.m. afternoon session

Watch or Listen Live

All sessions will be streamed live on the live broadcasts page of ChurchofJesusChrist.org. You can also watch and listen on the General Conference YouTube channel; Gospel Library app; and other radio, television, satellite, and digital channels. For a detailed list of live and on-demand viewing options, see “Ways to Watch or Listen to General Conference Live.”

Watch or Listen Later

Following the broadcast, the messages will be available in text, audio, and video formats on multiple channels for on-demand viewing and studying. These channels include Gospel Library, Gospel Media, the General Conference YouTube channel, the General Conference podcast, and the Church magazines.

Heads up, I hate the heat. It doesn't agree with me. Too much of it means fire season and danger of evacuation. Everything wilts and everything gets dusty. When it's cold, it's called a jacket. When it's hot and you have no AC...uh...get naked? I'm not about that life. Having lived in Arizona heat down in Mesa, with nothing but a swamp cooler was like, how am I even alive and lucid today? Okay, maybe not too lucid, BUT...

I've realized something. Where I live, heat is a harbinger of weather conditions. People always say the old Natives know about the weather no matter where they live or what sort of climate.

My grandpa used to be able to tell the weather and he was always right, unlike the weather station. One day, legit, they thought there wasn't a cloud in Arizona. They said this while a snowstorm was blasting outside my window. For any of you who don't know, Arizona has cold parts with pine trees and mountains.

Many think this weather knowledge is lost, but I do believe the old people learned their weather by just watching it and noting the signs. I did this when I was going to school in Utah. The weather would get extremely hot and muggy right before a storm. Watching and waiting, I took note. Yes, every single time it got unusually hot and horrible, a storm would hit, whether it was rain or snow. In the winter, it would get warmer than usual, and then BAM.

When I came back to Arizona, I wondered if that would be the same. For a while, it wasn't. Arizona had different ways to tell the weather, and these ways are still legit. One is that there's an aura around the moon, when the crescent moon is tipped over like a cup spilling water, when the clouds look like a big washboard, when you can hear the frogs singing at night, and now, heat. Yes. Hot and muggy, unusually horrible, and then the storm. Everything cools off--at least in my neck of Arizona.

I was no good at telling it when I was younger. I was a 90's kid and I didn't have time for weather. I was all about cartoons, toys, escaping the bullies at school, and trying to get a swing at lunch recess.

So now, when the heat comes, I'm thankful for it. I'm glad Heavenly Father put it here, because now heat means something good is coming. Blessed relief is coming.

Fun facts about "Toni's Land."

The story takes place in Whiteriver, Arizona, on the Fort Apache Reservation.

At the time that I wrote this story, a meteor actually did fall in Whiteriver.

"Toni's Land" is in a trilogy involving "The Cowboy Cabin" and "The Hairy Man."

Marlo's make-up is based off of a random girl's make-up I saw at a gas station.

I thought the story was hilarious, so imagine my surprise when it was picked up by a horror magazine.

The editor of the magazine later unfriended me under mysterious circumstances on both Twitter and Facebook.

"Toni's Land" was the only story I wrote that year, and the only story that got published.

The name Zena Antoinette Alfonsina Jun was inspired from a bunch of Apaches who named their kids some seriously random names.

Zena calls Marlo Mrs. Baylish, using the last name of Marlo's crush. The concept came from my high school years in Alchesay, when girls would call themselves by the names of their crushes. I was Mrs. Altaha.

The other day, I woke up, and noticed a chill in the air. My blood started rushing and the spirit of fall fell heavy on me. The clouds have that fuzzy look, which means they're cold.

While it isn't time for sweaters just yet, the nights are whispering of autumn and all of its delights with pumpkins, apple cider, coloring leaves, cooling weather, tons of baking, and fuzzy socks.

Come September, we're going to decorate early, and bask in the happy scarecrows and orange wreaths that we made last year. The aroma of pumpkin and apple pies will fill the house.

Hunting season is coming and the elk will be whistling out there in the night. This year, we'll go out under the diamond sky and listen, snuggled in warm jackets and snacks at our side. If we're crazy enough, we'll hit the fence with sticks and make them come charging in.

How I love the changing weather! It stirs the muse and makes it sing.

I'm so thankful to Heavenly Father for autumn.

I've been studying more about Jesus Christ, our Savior in a manual called "Come Follow Me." For those of you who don't know what that is, here is the link: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-individuals-and-families-old-testament-2022?lang=eng

The study I did today was reading Psalms 8, 19, and 33.

The question posed for the reading was:

How do the Lord’s creations declare the glory of God to you?

My answer:

They are a pure, mighty, and sure testimony of Him that can’t be disputed. When I look upon them, I know that He is, and that gives me more comfort than anything, when I’m all alone and frightened. Looking at the stars tells me that He is real and that He is there. From there, all that I’m told is true of Him. He loves me and will always be with me. He made all those things and He made me, and I am His daughter. I am His baby. Nothing can make itself, and that’s a fact. He had to make it. Matter can’t organize itself, it has no brain. So when I look at His marvelous works, I am comforted, I am at peace, and I am at rest no matter what is happening.

"The Little Man" was based on two bizarre stories that took place in the same room of my grandma's house and later was my dad's house.

When my parents were newlyweds, still in college, and my mom was pregnant with me, she and my dad had to live with my grandparents for a little while. They were designated to the smallest bedroom in the house.

My mom had nightmares that I'd be born as a walking, talking little man in a black suit, about two feet high.

Of course, that never happened and I was a normal squishy baby.

Fast forward a few decades, and the house belongs to my dad now. My youngest sister was now in that same middle room.

She woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like something was there. She glanced at her shoulder and a little man in a black suit was perched by her face and looking at her. In a fit of panic, she seized him and threw him across the room.

She tried to go back to sleep, but then sat up, freaking that he was angry and would bite her feet. She started tearing her room apart as she looked for him. She almost went so far as to wake up my brother and tell him that there was a little man in the room.

Just as she was about to wake him up, she came to her senses, decided she was hallucinating, and went back to sleep.

And so, from that fiasco, I wrote "The Little Man," and that story is now dedicated to her. She finds it funny now, but both of us are mystified about my mom dreaming of him all those years ago. And in the same room, no less.

What was more was that I was the only one who knew of both stories, so there was no "My sister heard it from my mom and then dreamed of it."

The last few years have been extremely dry and hot. Smoke, sometimes ashes falling out of the sky, and the whir of helicopters have become routine for the summer months. Evacuation is a possibility. It could be followed by bedbugs and other gross things, like itchy chicken blankets and allergy attacks.

The rains have come early this year. They fell in June, which is usually a giant blister on the calendar. Lots and lots of rain! The fields have become green and the trees have stopped crying. The air has cooled off, which is an especial blessing for a house with no AC or swamp cooler to speak of.

How I love the rain! I love the formations the clouds make. I love how it turns everything green and springy. The scent it brings is one of my favorite aromas in the world. Near the end of the monsoon season, the mushrooms pop out. Flowers bloom and return to life. Scorched skies are washed azure blue. Rain falls instead of ash. The water becomes sweet and cold, as if all the chlorine and bleach got purged.

The sun shines with more radiance than before. Everything glows and the wild rush of wind sends thrills through my being. Mists cast a fantastical spell on the forest that makes you wonder like a child again.

I'm so thankful for the rain, the mud, the drumming on the roof and the drip-drip into the mirror puddles soaking into the ground.

Rain is a beautiful thing. I'm so grateful to my Heavenly Father for sending it early, "good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over" this year.

Luke 6:38