#Nisei Week

[mysticdragon3art]

Miku at Nisei Week / Tanabata LA 2024's second of 2 weekends.

8/18/2024. Did some lighting adjustments thru my phone.

Nisei Week (more than Los Angeles Tanabata) 2024, in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles.

Nendoroid Hatsune Miku natsutsubaki version.

[nidailylife]

8/18/2024. ikayaki from #Shinsengumi 🎋 #TanabataLA #Nendoroid #figurephotography #nendography #HatsuneMiku #Tanabata2024 #NiseiWeek #GoLittleTokyo #LittleTokyo

[mytreasuredaesthetics]

https://www.instagram.com/kimonoyala?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[mysticdragon3md3]

Things to do in the San Fernando Valley, LA area, Aug. 8-15 https://www.dailynews.com/2024/08/08/things-to-do-in-the-san-fernando-valley-la-area-aug-8-15/

[thenerdsofcolor]

'Crazy Talented Asians' Returns to East West Players!

East West Players, in partnership with AJ Rafael, is thrilled to announce the return of Crazy Talented Asians. This variety benefit show will take place on Saturday, August 17, 2024, at East West Players’ David Henry Hwang Theater, just in time for Nisei Week and the 140th Anniversary of Little Tokyo, as well as the arrival of the theatre’s new artistic director Lily Tung Crystal. There’s going…

[foxwmulder]

I just found my list of when I categorized every xf episode (mostly through s7) during quarantine lmao

MONSTER OF THE WEEK CATEGORIES

Cultural

Shapes

Fresh Bones

The Calusari

Teso Dos Bichos

Hell Money

Teliko

El Munda Gira

Theef

Prison or Military

Deep Throat

Space

Sleepless

The List

The Walk

Unrequited

Trevor

Religious

Miracle Man

Revelations

Grotesque

Kaddish

All Souls

Signs and Wonders

Millennium

Cult or Satanists

Gender Bender

Red Museum

Our Town

3

Syzygy

Die Hand Die Verletzt

Sanguinarium

Terms of Endearment

Nothing Lasts Forever

Lone Gunmen- or CSM-Centric

Musings of a CSM

Unusual Suspects

Three of a Kind

First Person Shooter

This

Skinner-Centric

Avatar

Zero Sum

SR 819

Brand X

Hollywood AD

Kitten

Arthur Dales’s Tales

Travelers

The Unnatural

Agua Mala

Scully Side Quest

Irresistible / Orison

Chinga

Never Again

Milagro

En Ami

all things

Home Again

Ghouli

Mulder, They Already Destroyed the Evidence!

Ice

Firewalker

Dod Kalm

F. Emasculata

Wetwired

The Pine Bluff Variant

Drive

Wait, It’s Actually Aliens?

Pilot

Jose Chung

Control the Elements

Fire

DPO

Soft Light

Schizogeny

Rush

The Rain King

Medical Anomalies

Young at Heart

Eve

Home

Small Potatoes

Postmodern Prometheus

Founder’s Mutation

Guys Who Need to Eat Weird Stuff

Squeeze / Tooms

2Shy

Pusher / Kitsunegari

Leonard Betts

Hungry

Switch Lives or Linked Brains

Lazarus

Roland

Oubliette

Paper Hearts

Mind’s Eye

Dreamland I and II

Fight Club

Plus One

Time Travel or Warp

Synchrony

Monday

Lost Art of the Forehead Sweat

Ghosts or Past Lives

Shadows

Born Again

Excelsis Dei

Elegy

Aubrey

The Field Where I Died

Triangle

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas

AI Is Out To Get Us

Blood

Ghost in the Machine

Kill Switch

Rm9sbG93ZXJs

Half Man, Half Monster

The Host

Jersey Devil

Humbug

Detour

Bad Blood

Folie a Duex

Chimera

Mulder and Scully Meet the Weremonster

All Monster, No Man

Darkness Falls

Fearful Symmetry

Quagmire

War of the Coprophages

Alpha

Arcadia

Field Trip

X-Cops

Magic, Psychic, or Lucky

Beyond the Sea

Clyde Bruckman

Unruhe

Tithonus

The Amazing Maleeni

Je Souaite

The Goldberg Variation

MYTHOLOGY CATEGORIES

They’re Closing The X-Files!

The Erlenmeyer Flask / Little Green Men

The End / The Beginning

Fight the Future

Uh…Samantha?

Colony / End Game

Talitha Cumi / Herrenvolk

Sein Und Zeit / Closure

I’m Literally On Board Already, Scully

Fallen Angel

EBE

Nisei / 731

Piper Maru / Apocrypha

Tempus Fugit / Max

Tunguska / Terma

Agent Mulder Is Dead! Or Is He?

Anasazi / The Blessing Way / Paper Clip

Redux I and II

This Is Not Happening / Dead Alive

Mulder…You Good?

Demons / Gethsemane

Biogenesis / The Sixth Extinction

The Syndicate Hates Scully

Duane Barry / Ascension / One Breath

Memento Mori

Christmas Carol / Emily

Patient X / The Red and the Black

Why Was This Made

I Want to Believe

Discarded Categories

Creepy White Guy Predator

This Is a Small Town, We Don’t Lock Our Doors

A Nice Trip to the Forest

[todaysdocument]

At the beginning of WWII, Naval Intelligence officers concluded that there were around 10,000 Japanese Americans who could pose a threat to the U.S.

Army General DeWitt used his authority to incarcerate 120,000. 

U.S. v Korematsu, Exhibit Q, April 30, 1943. 

Record Group 21: Records of District Courts of the United States

Series: Criminal Case Files

File Unit: United States v. Korematsu

Transcription: 

Edward J. Ennis

Director

Exhibit Q

Department of Justice

Alien Enemy Control Unit

Washington

April 30, 1943

[stamp] DEPARTMENT OF [illegible]

SEP 1[illegible] 1951

DIVISION OF [illegible]

ATTORNEY GENERAL [end stamp]

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

RE: Japanese Brief

Last week with our draft of the [underlined] Hirabayeshi [end underlined] brief I transmitted to Mr. Raum somematerial which I thought he would find helpful in obtaining a background view of the context of this case. In particular, I sent him a copy of Harpers Magazine for October 1942, which contains an article entitled [underlined] The Japanese in America, The Problem and the Solution, [end underline] which is said to be by "An Intelligence Officer". without attempting to summarize this article, it stated among other things that:

1. The number of Japanese aliens and citizens who would act as saboteurs and enemy agents was less than 3,500 throughout the entire United States.

2. Of the Japanese aliens, "the large majority are at least passively loyal to the United States".

3. "The Americanization of Nisei (American-born Japanese) is far advanced."

4. With the exception of a few identified persons who were prominent in pro-Japanese organization the only important group of dangerous Japanese were the Kibei (American-born Japanese predominantly educated in Japan).

5. "The identity of Kibei can be readily ascertained from United States Government records."

6. "Had this war not come along at this time, in another ten or fifteen years there would have been no Japanese problem, for the Issei would have passed on, and the Nisei taken their place naturally in American communities and national life."

This article concludes: "To sum up: The  'Japanese Problem' has been magnified out of its true proportion largely because of the physical characteristics of the Japanese people. It should not be handled on the basis of the [underlined: individual], regardless of citizenship and [underlined: not] on a racial basis." (Emphasis in original.)

I thought this article interesting even though it was substantially anonymous. I now attach much more significance to it because a memorandum prepared by Lt. Con. X. D. Ringle, who has until very recently been Assis-

[handwritten in bottom right corner] #8 [end handwritten]

[page 2]

tant District Intelligence Officer, 1th Naval District, in charge of naval intelligence in that district (which includes Los Angeles), and who was formerly Assistant District Intelligence Officer in Hawaii, has come to my attention. A comparison of this memorandum with the article leaves no doubt that the author of the Harpers article is Lt. Com. K. D. Ringle. There are many long passages in the first person relating to personal experiences which are identical in the two writings.

  In addition I am informed entirely unofficially by the persons in the Office of Naval Intelligence that Lt. Com. Ringle in fact was lent to War Relocation Authority to prepare a manual on the background of the Japanese who were being evacuated from an Intelligence or security viewpoint, for the use of the WRA personnel. After this memorandum was prepared permission was obtained to abstract it and publish it anonymously in Harpers. Thus the Harpers article, which clearly indicates that the method of evacuation was wrong and that it would have been sufficient to evacuate not more than 10,000 know Japanese and that it would now be sage to release all but not more than 10,000 presently identified Japanese, was written by a Naval Intelligence officer who was on duty from 1940 until very recently in the Los Angeles area, from which approximately one-third of the evacuation came.

  I have furthermore been most informally, but altogether reliably, advised that both the article and the WRA memorandum prepared by Lt. Com. Ringle represent the views, if not of the Navy, at least of those Naval Intelligence officers in charge of Japanese counter-intelligence work. It has been suggested to me quite clearly that it is the view of these officers that the whole evacuation scheme was carried out badly and that it would have been sufficient to evacuate the following three groups:

1. The Kibei.

2. The parents of Kibei.

3. A known group of aliens and citizens who were active members of pro-Japanese societies such as the Japanese Navy League, the Military Virtue Society, etc.

Since the naval officers believe that it was necessary to evacuate only about 10,000 people they could have identified by name, they did not feel that it was necessary to evacuate all of the Japanese. Presumably, they did not make this view known fourteen months ago for the reasons that Secretary Knox was at that time greatly exercised about the Japanese Fifth Column and that, since it was the Army's problem, it was safer to keep quiet than to brave the political storm then raging.

In retrospect it appears that this Department made a mistake fourteen months ago in not bringing the Office of Naval Intelligence into the

[page 3]

controversy. I suppose that the reason that it did not occur to any of us to do this was the extreme position then taken by the Secretary of the Navy.

   To have done so would have been wholly reasonable, since by the terms of the so-called delimitation agreement it was agreed that Naval Intelligence should specialize on the Japanese, while Army Intelligence occupied other fields. I have not seen the document, but I have repeatedly been told that Army, before the war, agreed in writing to permit the Navy to conduct its Japanese intelligence work for it. I think it follows, therefore, that to a very considerable extent the Army, in acting upon the opinion of Intelligence officers, is bound by the opinion of the Naval officers in Japanese matters. Thus, had we known that the Navy thought that 90% of the evacuation was unnecessary, we could strongly have urged upon Gen. DeWitt that he could not base a military judgment to the contrary upon Intelligence reports, as he now claims to do.

Lt. Com. Ringle's full memorandum is somewhat more complete than the version published in Harpers and I think you will be interested in reading it. In the past year I have looked at  great numbers of reports, memoranda, and articles on the Japanese, and it is my opinion that this is the most reasonable and objective discussion of the security problem presented by the presence of the Japanese minority. In view of the inherent reasonableness of this memorandum and in view of the fact that we now know that it represents the view of the Intelligence agency having the most direct responsibility for investigating the Japanese from the security viewpoint, I feel that we should be extremely careful in taking any position on the facts more hostile to the Japanese than the position of Lt. Com. Ringle. I attach the Department's only copy of this memorandum.

  Furthermore, in view of the fact that the Department of Justice is now representing the Army in the Supreme Court of the United States and is arguing that a partial, selective evacuation was impracticable, we must consider most carefully what our obligation to the Court is in view of the fact that the responsible Intelligence agency regarded a selective evacuation as not only sufficient but preferable. It is my opinion that certainly one of the most difficult questions in the whole case is raised by the fact that the Army did not evacuate people after any hearing or on any individual determination of dangerousness, but evacuated the entire racial group. The briefs filed by appellants in the Ninth Circuit particularly pressed the point that no individual consideration was given, and I regard it as certain that this point will be stressed even more, assuming that competent counsel represent appellants, in the Supreme Court. Thus, in one of the crucial points of the case the Government is forced to argue that individual, selective evacuation would have been impractical and insufficient when we have positive knowledge that the only Intelligence agency responsible for advising Gen. DeWitt gave him advice directly to the contrary.

[page 4[

In view of this fact, I think we should consider very carefully whether we do not have a duty to advise the Court of the existence of the Ringle memorandum and of the fact that this represents the view of the Office of Naval Intelligence. It occurs to me that any other course of conduct might approximate the suppression of evidence.

  As I have said, my information that the Ringle memorandum represents the view of the Office of Naval Intelligence has come to me informally. I feel, therefore, that we have an obligation to verify my informal information. I believer that we should address an inquiry to the Secretary of the Navy, making reference to the Ringle memorandum, and stating that we have been advised that this represents the Navy's view and asking the Secretary if in fact the views of ONI, at the time of the evacuation, coincided with Com. Ringle's.

 The Ringle memorandum originally came into my possession from WRA and we noticed the parallel between the memorandum and the article in this office. Attorneys for WRA furthermore are among the persons who have advised us that the Ringle memorandum represents the official Navy view. In view of the fact that any other information which I have obtained is highly confidential, I would prefer to refer in a letter to Secretary Knox only to WRA.

  I have prepared for your consideration a draft of a letter which you might wish to send to Mr. Knox.

Edward J. Ennis

Director, Alien Enemy Control Unit

Attachment

[benoitblanc]

hey arwen, long time no see!! hope you're doing well! 💜

i know nothing about txf besides what i've gleaned from this hellsite which is a) mulder is a lovable idiot, b) scully both loves him (almost against her will??), and c) they literally invented shipping BUT tell me about your top 5 txf episodes!!!

hi mitali i have been EXTREMELY patchy on here lately haven't i lol. local woman appears on tumblr to write ten meta posts about the x files and then disappears again! i'm doing okay; my real life has been kind of chaotic (had to last-minute cancel a trip i have been desperate to go on for years so :/ but! on the bright side it means i get to see my flatmates sooner than i thought and i miss them even though i've been gone from my flat for like a week and a half lol). how have you been???

those are very accurate txf vibes but i will say that scully is a very active and willing participant in being in love with mulder even though he can be very very stupid at times lol. i hope you watch it someday- i think it would be right up your alley! kind of similar doctor who ecological niche of being weird, heartfelt, politically relevant sci-fi with no consistent quality or tone.

ANYWAY. top 5 txf episodes, bearing in mind that i've technically only watched up until the end of the fourth season so far; i'm just a ho for spoilers:

pusher (3.17)... what can i say about pusher that i haven't said already. a lot, probably, because every single day i log on here and i see someone's written new meta about pusher that makes the entire show make more sense. it's just... it's txf distilled to its barest elements. it's about trust and codependency and a supernatural force that is made all the more unsettling by the fact that at its core it is just some guy. it's funny and terrifying and heartfelt all at once. the russian roulette scene changed television

clyde bruckman's final repose (3.04) is also just so txf. darin morgan (the writer) tended to write episodes that were so absurdist they wrapped back around to satirical, but this is far and away my favorite of his because it's not too bonkers. i love coprophages and from outer space especially, but clyde bruckman is a little more grounded, and it manages to be sarcastic and sincere in equal measure. and i love when scully gets to solve the mystery

irresistible (2.13), which is famous for being pretty much the only txf episode where there isn't actually an x-file. and it's SO fucked up. it is hands-down the most fucked up episode of the entire sh- well. besides the episode that they banned from reruns for like a decade for being so fucked up, it's hands-down the most fucked up episode of the entire show

beyond the sea (1.13) and paper hearts (4.10) are thematic sisters so i'm keeping them together. they're both about choosing to move past grief instead of wallowing in it and choosing the future over the past. so what if a criminal says they can give you the answers you've spent your whole life chasing? what matters is that you're at your partner's hospital bedside when he wakes up from an injury, or that you save a little girl's life

right now? probably ice (1.08), because i just rewatched it with my flatmate (who is going through s1 for the first time and is almost as obsessed as i am). it's like if midnight doctor who and the thing had a baby. normally i think this slot would go to duane barry/ascension/one breath (2.05/2.06/2.08) or nisei/731 (3.09/3.10), which are the tightest, tensest episodes relating to the show's overarching mythology

honorable mention goes to elegy (4.22) because the a-plot is a very 90s depiction of neurodivergence and it's not the best-handled thing i've ever seen, but the character showcase of scully in the b-plot gave me fucking brain worms. i cannot stop thinking about it. it's haunting.

also, memento mori (4.14). vince gilligan and gillian anderson you're splitting my therapy bill

ask my top 5/10 anything!!!

[deathsbestgirl]

favorite episodes

categorized & in chronological order — with repeats (under the cut because it's long)

season one

pilot

squeeze/tooms

conduit

the jersey devil

ice

fallen angel

eve

fire

beyond the sea

lazarus

e.b.e.

miracle man

erlenmeyer flask

season two

little green men/the host

sleepless/duane barry/ascension/3/one breath

firewalker

red museum

excelsis dei

irresistible

fresh bones

colony/end game

humbug

our town

anasazi

season three

the blessing way

clyde bruckman's final repose

oubilette

nisei/731

revelations

war of the coprophages/syzygy

grotesque

piper maru/apocrypha

pusher

avatar

quagmire

wetwired

talitha cumi

season four

herronvolk

home

unruhe

the field where i died

tunguska/terma

paper hearts

never again/leonard betts/memento mori

tempus fugit/max

small potatoes

zero sum

elegy

demons

gethsemane

season five

reduxes

detour

christmas carol/emily

kitsunegari

chinga

kill switch

bad blood

patient x/the red and the black

mind's eye

all souls

pine bluff variant

folie a deux

the end

x files: fight they future

season six

the beginning

drive

triangle/dreamlands/how the ghosts stole christmas

the rain king

s.r. 819

tithonus

two fathers/one son

agua mala/monday/arcadia

milagro

the unnatural

three of a kind

field trip

biogenesis

season seven

sixth extinction/amor fati

millennium

rush

the goldberg variation

orison

sein und zeit/closure

x cops

theef

en ami/chimera/all things

hollywood a.d.

fight club

je souhaite

requiem

season eight

within/without

patience

roadrunners

via negativa

the gift

medusa

per manum

this is not happening/deadalive

alone

essence/existence

season nine

trust no1

hellbound

provenance/providence

improbable

scary monsters

jump the shark

william

release

sunshine days

the truth (part 1&2)

x files: i want to believe

season ten

my struggle

home again

mulder and scully meet the weremonster

my struggle ii

season eleven

my struggle iii

this

plus one

the lost art of forehead sweat

ghouli

kitten

Rm9sbG93ZXJz

familiar

my struggle iv

mytharc

pilot

e.b.e.

little green men

colony/end game

anasazi/the blessing way/paperclip

tunguska/terma

tempus fugit/max

gethsemane/reduxes

the end/the beginning

patient x/the red and the black

two fathers/one son

within/without

this is not happening/deadalive

monster of the week

the jersey devil

clyde bruckman's final repose

home

kill switch

three of a kind

x cops

roadrunners

medusa

improbable

mulder and scully meet the weremonster

the lost art of forehead sweat

scully

beyond the sea

lazarus

irresistible/orison

revelations

wetwired

never again

christmas carol/emily

chinga

all souls

tithonus

milagro

en ami

all things

mulder

conduit

fire

3

oubilette

pusher/kitsinegari

paper hearts

demons

drive

sein und zeit/closure

mind's eye

the gift

per manum

the truth

mulder and scully

squeeze/tooms

war of the coprophages/syzygy

quagmire

detour

bad blood

how the ghosts stole christmas

the unnatural

field trip

hollywood a.d.

fight club

je souhaite

plus one

Rm9sbG93ZXJz

[noodlewaifu]

Not to mention, I'm currently following a watch schedule in my head for the anime to ensure I can get caught up to Perfect Origin and Ultimate Muscle/Nisei-

Days that I work: 3 episodes per day

Off days: At least 4-6, depending if I'm busy/feeling well

By the end of the week, I should be a quarter way done (praying that I am).

Plus someone on here made it aware about the Ramenman spin-off anime, and jokes on you I already started watching that shit, on God.

[lboogie1906]

Daisy Tibbs Dawson (July 27, 1924 - May 26, 2013) She was born in Toney, Alabama to Calvin and Martha Tibbs. Her parents died, leaving her and her two siblings in the care of their uncle, Robert Tibbs, and his wife, Mary Leslie. She took classes from a diverse cohort of faculty that included both Black and white teachers and a Japanese music instructor who was interned by authorities after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As a student at the University of Washington, she met Akiko Kurose, a Japanese American student who would become a famed educator. She met Floyd Schmoe, a forest and marine ecology professor and a popular Quaker who was committed to social justice. She became involved in repairing Nisei homes on the weekends after the government ordered the evacuation of the Japanese from King County.

She graduated from the University of Washington, she took a teaching position at Harbison Junior College. Schmoe contacted her about joining a small interracial and interdenominational group to help build houses in Hiroshima. She volunteered at the Hiroshima Memorial Hospital preparing food. She worked six hours a day, five days a week building new homes. She had assisted in building four houses.

She married Leonard Dawson (1950) and raised a family. She volunteered with the Head Start program and was hired as an assistant teacher at Colman Elementary School. She was promoted to Head Teacher. She served as a Supervisory Teacher, Volunteer Coordinator, and Education Specialist. She became the third African American woman hired as the Program Director of the Seattle Public Schools Head Start Program.

She served as President of the Washington State Head Start Directors’ Association and was appointed to the Washington State Committee for Early Childhood Education for Children. She served as President of the A & S League of the Principals’ Association of Seattle’s Public Schools. She was a lifelong member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and the Madrona Grace Presbyterian Church.

She was recognized and forever memorialized in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #deltasigmatheta

[mysticdragon3art]

Miku at Tanabata LA 2024's first of 2 weekends.

8.10.2024. Did some lighting adjustments thru my phone.

Los Angeles Tanabata 2024, in conjunction with Nisei Week 2024. Little Tokyo, Los Angeles.

Nendoroid Hatsune Miku natsutsubaki version.

[nidailylife]

8/18/2024. JACCC #garden in the background. 🎋 #TanabataLA #Nendoroid #figurephotography #nendography #HatsuneMiku #Tanabata2024 #NiseiWeek #GoLittleTokyo #LittleTokyo

[sabakos]

Tagged by: @phaeton-flier

Rules: Tag 10 people you want to get to know better.

Relationship status: Single

Favorite color: Purple, but red still holds a place in my heart.

Song stuck in my head: Airhead by Picon ft. Hatsune Miku

Last song I listened to: Animal by Mafumafu (Cover of DECO*27)

Three favorite foods: Nigiri sushi, Texas Chili, Murgh Makhani.

Last thing I googled: coulrophiliac 🤡

Dream trip: My dad and I are going to Kyoto in the fall for a combined 30th/60th birthday vacation which I'm looking forward to. Also the world is kind of falling apart right now but back in college I liked the idea of doing some sort of nomad thing where I travel around and stay in each place for a few months, just long enough to make some people fall in love with me, and then leave for somewhere else. I don't think I want to do that anymore though, I'm too old and the world is too scary.

Anything I want right now: In rough order of plausibility, a functioning car, a (remote, ideally) tech job where I just have to be smart/clever and work a few hours a week even if I have to be "at work" and available; a bunch of close friends I see in person everyday who I can be out as trans and disastrously queer/schizoid around; an open-minded tech-adjacent cuddly polycule / sex cult to adopt me and keep me as a free range catboy; the support structure necessary to fully embrace the madness; three million dollars and access to decent healthcare for the rest of my life; amphetamine pro re nata and a small team of researchers to help me complete The Project.

Tagging @k-simplex @sysid-ace @tsarina-anadyomene @caprice-nisei-enjoyer @lumsel @kaiasky @nthfunct @vren-diagram @dogrates @mithridic if you want also any other mutuals who want ofc consider yourself tagged I love you and i want to know you

[mysticdragon3md3]

🦁💙💙💙💙💔💸💸💸💸💸

see journal 4:51 PM 8/4/2024

excerpts about figure collecting:

Another wrench in my plans is the recent announcement of Good Smile Company's 1/7 scale figure of Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. This is the first post-timeskip figure of Dimitri or Claude---the 2 characters that I have been dying to have more figures for, particularly in their post-timeskip versions. The only way to help give Claude chances of getting a post-timeskip figure, the only way to help give any FE3H characters chances of getting Nendoroids, would be to preorder this 1/7 scale Dimitri. Here's the problem: I AM NOT A SCALE FIGURE COLLECTOR. $200+ ON ONE FIGURE IS NOT SOMETHING I'M ACCUSTOMED TO DOING! Even now, I'm still unsure if I should preorder him or not. He's my second-favorite character. How can I justify spending OVER $200 on my SECOND-favorite character? Shouldn't that be a splurge reserved only for my ABSOLUTE favorite character??? But it's also possible that this 1/7 scale Dimitri may end up the ONLY post-timeskip figure for FE3H ever---and it's of one of my 2 favorite characters. If this ends up my only chance for a post-timeskip figure of either Claude or Dimitri...Then I need to get it. If this ends up a chance to increase Claude's chances of getting post-timeskip figures or of both Dimitri and Claude possibly getting post-timeskip Nendoroids...Then I need to get it. BUT $200 IS A LOT OF MONEY!

...

How can I justify the cost of ONE $200 figure---when I'd be just as happy with a $40 Pop Up Parade or any $25 prize figure, of post-timeskip Dimitri---when that same amount of money could get me SIX Nendoroids! (For example, during Good Smile Company's 2024 Memorial Day sale, I bought a WHOLE SIX NENDOROIDS for around $200.) Mind you, I love Nendoroids more than scale figures. I do not like static figures. I prefer articulation.

Yes, I can afford this $200 Dimitri scale, but I think it would mean I'd have to give up on several other things I was thinking of spending on---including attending Tanabata. I wanted to recreate my experience shopping, wandering, and enjoying my family's Japan trip, by going to Little Tokyo. I wanted to do this to maintain the progress that our Japan trip gave me against my agoraphobia. But maybe I can't afford it, if I get this $200 Dimitri. Whenever I attend Nisei Week or Tanabata, I buy matcha ice cream, Takoyaki, okonomiyaki, sata andagi, and I wanted to try some other snacks this year too. And then I spend lots at Kinokuniya and Anime Jungle. Rumiko Takahashi released a new artbook, a few months ago, for the first time in forever. I didn't even bother looking for it in Japan, because I thought I'll just buy it in Los Angeles's Kinokuniya, like I always do with artbooks. But I expect it to be at least $60, and maybe that's something I shouldn't spend on, if I want to afford 1/7 scale Dimitri.

The big problem is that WE DON'T KNOW if there will ever be any alternative figures that also depict post-timeskip Dimitri (or Claude). This could be the one and ONLY. I don't want to buy a static scale figure. I think they're a waste of money. Very good quality, but I'm just as satisfied with Pop Up Parades, prize figures, and I'm even more happy about Nendoroids. I DON'T WANT TO SPEND $200 ON A STATIC SCALE…But it's post-timeskip Dimitri and we don't know if this is our only chance for a post-timeskip Dimitri (or Claude). I'm very conflicted about this, and in much turmoil. I'm just glad I have until near the end of October to decide on a preorder.

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Also reiterating this venting from 8/3/2024:

If I get 1/7 scale Dimitri, I might have to give up on Pop Up Parade L sized Arsene. I’ve been wanting an Arsene figure for so long, but if they’re only offering L size, and it ends up expensive, like the XL sized PopUpParade Falin, I’ll have to regard it as inaccessible as any Arsene scale figure. PopUpParade was supposed to be affordable dammit! Why can’t we have normal sized Arsene?! I just wanted a normal sized Pop Up Parade Arsene, under $40. ;o;

[pjstafford]

The X Files Episode Detour as a Cancer Arc Episode

This blog entry looks at The X Files fifth season, fourth episode Detour in the perspective of where it sits in the cancer arc.

It is worth noting that in 1997 long form television was still relatively new in terms of ongoing series. There were soap operas and there were anthologies, but 1990's shows like Twin Peaks and The X Files brought to television a more cinematic approach. The X Files, in addition, incorporated a flexible framework to its storytelling - able to have both a mythology "arc" and stand alone episodes, as well as having comedic, horror, drama, science fiction episodes. A BBC article from February 24th, 2016 "How The X-Files changed Television" talks about the novelty of "story arcs" in the 90s and says that The X Files served as a bridge between eras.

The X Files is commonly known for having mythology arc episodes and stand alone monster of the weeks episodes. It has, perhaps, become more acknowledged in hind sight that the true "arc" is the relationship and eventual romance of Mulder and Scully. From Season Four to the beginning of Season Five, there was another arc, the cancer arc, which was a thread throughout both mythology and monster of the week episodes. When does the arc begin and end is, like most issues related to the content of The X Files, open to debate. Fanlore.org lists eight episodes as canon in the cancer arc - beginning with Leonard Betts (season four episode 12) and ending with Scully being cured in Reflux II (Season five episode 2). It is acknowledged that earlier episodes such as The Blessing Way, Nisei/731, can be included in the arc and that Unruhe can be interpreted as being part of the arc. Recent discussions among other fans have suggested that those episodes between Leonard Betts and Reflux II which are not part of the cancer arc can be better appreciated through considering that both characters are being impacted by Scully's cancer. I believe that Detour - set two episodes after Reflux II- needs to be considered as part of the cancer arc episodes in this same vein. Please note the episode between Reflux II and Detour is an episode that deals in the past with how Mulder met the lone gunmen and so Detour is the first "post cancer" episode.

Let's view this episode, then, with a cancer arc perspective.

The first time we see Mulder and Scully is in scene three. They are in the backseat of a car with two other FBI agents in the front seat on their way to a FBI team building seminar. As the two FBI agents talk enthusiastically about past seminars and are clearly looking forward to the upcoming seminar, Mulder is making comical statements from the backseat to let you know that he is not looking forward to this.

When last we saw Mulder and Scully in the previous three cancer arc episodes, Scully lies to the FBI for her partner about his apparent suicide, Scully enters the hospital expecting to die, Mulder breaches a Department of Defense high security facility to find an unlikely cure for her cancer. While it makes some type of bureaucratic sense to send these two to a team seminar as they return to the field, it makes no sense in any other way. As the scenes that follows will portray, these two do not need a team building seminar. There might be additional reasons, however, why Mulder wants to avoid it. For these two to spend a couple of days processing how they feel about their partnership which now, surprisingly, they get to pursue together, might be a bit much for two people who are not really comfortable discussing their feelings. Mulder's desire to find a convenient reason to escape the seminar takes on a different connotation when the timing is considered.

In scene five, Mulder is in hotel room when Scully enters with cheese and wine. Scully references that this is against FBI policy and Mulder makes a joke and, then, very quickly exits to do further investigation. Scully says she thought the case was just an excuse to get out of the seminar. As Mulder leaves, Scully takes a gulp of wine. Again, here is some awkwardness around the fact that emotions are high and, yet, perhaps, Mulder is not ready to process them or does not want to take advantage of Scully in a vulnerable position. Mulder and Scully routinely follow their own lines of investigations. Typically Mulder gives Scully assignments or Scully tells Mulder what she is going to pursue and then asks Mulder where he is going. In this case, Mulder doesn't leave Scully pursuing any investigation and doesn't ask her to accompany him. He leaves her in a hotel room drinking wine. Its an odd scene to process if you don't think of it in terms of the cancer arc.

This brings us to the scene in the forest. There is a joke made about keeping warm and crawling into (non-existent) sleeping bags naked. Clearly, the sexual energy is high. Then Scully asks "have you ever thought seriously about dying?" Here is the opportunity for Mulder and Scully t have a serious conversation about how the possibility of her death impacted Mulder. Instead he he makes a joke. Then, undetoured, Scully reflects on her cancer. If we go back to the conversaton of the rock from quagmire, we remember the conversation about Moby Dick and Mulder's quest for the truth being like the white whale. In this conversation, in Detour, there is a discussion about the fact that giving life and death meaning is the struggle of life.

As an original viewer from the 90s, I never questioned why sometimes there were "breaks" from the mythology or why emotions or circumstances are left unprocessed in subsequent episodes. That was normal in television viewing at the time. As a continuing viewer in the streaming world of today, I was taken at how well The X Files lends itself to "binging" and continual watches. It is true that Inconsistencies and dropped details exist in The X Files which would probably never be found in long form television today, but, for many fans, that fuels an ongoing obsession. There is always something new, something different, a fresh perspective which makes you see the episodes differently. If Reflux II is the ending of the cancer arc, it certainly leaves the feelings that Mulder and Scully have dealt with during the cancer arc unprocessed. As much as I loved the cancer arc upon watching the series, I remember watching Detour as it aired and feeling some relief that we were back to the familiar -Mulder and Scully running in the forrest, having a discussion similar to the conversation on the rock and a reset to life post cancer. I still think it serves this purpose, but, the benefit of binging and long form television is being able to view an episode in a different way. Detour doesn't process the post cancer experiences very well either. It leaves Scully maybe wanting more and Mulder practicing some in character deflection away from his own emotions. But even when we don't know how to process our emotions, cancer and near death experience change people. Soon, Scully will confront her inability to have children, her desire to adopt children which might, also, be related to her reflection on the meaning of life post cancer. There will be conflict between these two partners, jealousy, and more near death experiences. Still, maybe, we can't watch any of the remaining episodes or think about Mulder and Scully becoming a couple together (as opposed to partners) without realizing the impact of the cancer arc on these two characters. The X Files, perhaps, did a better job of running a thread of continuity between episodes then even its long term fans understands or which we are, perhaps, just understanding now.

The X Files is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year with two fan based organized events. Podcasts. blogs, and fan discussion are as plentiful as ever. I will continue to watch and gain new perspective from this wonderful series and, from time to time, share my thoughts. Please respond with your own comments or thoughts to continue the discussion.