May 31 2016 - Collin Kennedy, who is a cancer patient, used expanding spray foam to disable a parking meter at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg where he gets his treatment. He says the fees are a tax on the sick. [video]
Lots of well-intentioned (I hope) but extremely condescending comments in the notes like “maybe don’t film yourself doing crime.” Respectfully… This man knew what he was doing. He didn’t just film himself, he invited media to film him. He did this to make his own statement, with his own voice, with his own face. He wanted himself and his actions to be visible.
Collin Kennedy died in 2018, just two years after this video was taken. What would anonymity have achieved for him in those last two years? Avoiding punishment? His whole point was that these parking fees are already a punishment on the sick.
Is public protest dangerous? Sure. Is it more dangerous than merely existing as a sick or disabled person navigating a hostile healthcare system? I think that is for every individual experiencing it to decide for themselves.
A Winnipeg man who filled a city parking meter with spray foam to protest the high cost of parking for sick people around hospitals has died
Collin Kennedy, 50, lived with multiple myeloma — a type of blood cancer — for 19 years.
He invited media to watch him fill a parking meter with spray foam to raise awareness about the high costs of parking for cancer patients and other sick people getting treatment. Video of Kennedy vandalizing the meter was widely shared on social media. It led to a Canada-wide petition to end the practice of charging for parking near hospitals.
He was a man who fought the only way he knew how, even if that meant taking matters into his own hands and disabling parking meters. He wasn’t in the boardrooms or corridors of power, he was on the streets trying to make a difference. (CBC News, December 12, 2018)
one thing that i find interesting is that even though we never get to interact with Marika directly, only knowing her via obscure cutscenes and other characters' dialogue... she actually displays a wide range of emotions as much as any other NPCs.
her statues depict her as having a warm, gentle smile:
the Mimic veil description points to her playful, mischievous side:
(it's a popular theory in the JP/Asian side of the fandom that it's sth from her childhood - hence the "Marika's Mischief", not "Queen Marika's", and she used it to escape the grisly fate befalling her family.
additionally, its equivalence in Dark Souls is also something described as "the mischief of a young girl who sought relief from the solitude of the woods at dusk", aka Princess Dusk who hails from "Oolacile, land of ancient golden sorceries", but i digress)
her portrait, the story trailer's "Queen Marika was driven to the brink" and Gideon's dialogue after the player defeated Malenia pointed out her sorrow:
(back when i first played the base game, this is the portrait that drove my eyes most in Roundtable Hold. i kept gazing at her - the Queen with permanently lowered eyes, and thought "there is a girl in there")
The bat lady's song, Messmer's entire Crusade, all those conflicts to establish the Erdtree, shows her anger, and the cruelty she's capable of:
Then there's Shaman's village, the clinic underneath Shadow Keep, the golden braid, the Minor Erdtree, the sealing of Death - that points to grief, trauma, survivor guilt, kindness, and the ruinous drive for revenge that results in the above path down hell:
(there's also a theory for the Crusade's headless statue being a reminder for the Hornsent of what they put Marika's mother through, but it's not concrete canon so here is the link if you want to check it out)
The fact that all of Erdtree's incantations are heal and protection spells (with only one exception of Wrath of Gold spell which was found after the Elden Ring was shattered), the Capitol's Perfumers originally being blessed healers, and that all Erdtree blessings come in the shape of tears give the picture of Marika's gentle wish at the beginning: to heal everything and everyone.
(and to me personally, there's a kind of vulnerability and honesty in showing your tears to the world and let it be your power to heal at the same time.)
the eye she blessed Messmer with (i do think the Eng translation at some part lost the sentiment of the JP text - that the eye is always referred to as a blessing)
the blessing flask that - unlike its Dark Souls equivalent (which ranges from 6-13 flasks), only have 4 available to us player, heal all ailments and status effect, and specified as sth made for Messmer.
the Marika's soreseal in the Haligtree + the waterfall near Godwyn's final resting place
the Regal Omen Bairn (that was fashioned after the Jizo statue - sth made by grieving parents wishing for protection for their deceased child in the afterlife)
the blessing, gifts, equipment that Messmer and Godwyn's personal knights all get
the fact that Marika's bedchamber and the Impaler's Catacomb (which is the only catacomb in the base game to have the spike trap mechanic used in catacombs in the DLC) remain the proof of Messmer's existence in the base game
how Godwyn's ending is the only ending where the mending rune is placed on the position of Marika's womb (the lower arc or the Elden Ring - also referred to as the basin in which its blessings pool)
that's a whole barrage of motherhood. the love, the fear, the postpartum depression, the guilt and anxiety, (the occasional scheming for revenge with her son). and despite how flawed and tragic that love ends up being for all of them, it is there.
(there's a whole subplot about how Messmer is the only demigod to be called ugly in-game (Hornsent npc dialogue) while Boc's questline is about how his mother being the only one to always assure him he's beautiful, despite everyone else calling him ugly. and how each NPCs questline does reflect a wider theme seen in Marika and her children. but again, i digress)
every time i think of her, Marika is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope, holding everything from within (the beauty and the malign, light and dark, birth and death, she's warm and gentle, she's cruel and unjust, she's strong and kind, she's weak and resentful, she's sweet and she's bitterness made flesh)... and i could only stand there and admire it all.
i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users
Remember when Lil Nas X beautifully explored his sexuality, seduced and killed the devil to the banger of all time, and instead of cheering on this openly gay and proud Black artist for his artistry and fighting back against respectability politics, suddenly said respectability politics was all the Queerest Place on the Internet cared about? Hm. Wonder what happened there.
Anyway I miss him and hope he's doing better with his mental health 🙏🏾
Like say what you want about "bad queer representation", but this was the song that made me openly and happily accept that I was bisexual. To see him up there Black and beautiful, making music that I love, absolutely killing it? Yeah. You couldn't tell me shit. This man made me proud to be out. "This will make them think we're evil for being gay" hey newsflash dawg-
hey you should ask your doctor about MAOIs. my SSRIs weren’t working so we tried those (i’m on nardil) and it did wonders for my mental health. just saying as a suggestion because based on the fact that you put the fucking onceler on my dashboard in 2022 the meds you take right now don’t work
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