1. Whenever I get sick, I also feel like the world around me should wither and decay out of respect for my discomfort.
2. I have never once suffered in silence and feel strongly that when I experience pain, so should everyone else.
3. Like the Fisher King, I prefer using vague euphemisms rather than referring directly to anyone’s genitals. “Where are you hurt?” “Leg area, in general.”
4. “During the feast, at the beginning of every course, a procession containing a candelabrum, a bleeding lance, and a grail are all brought through the dining hall. Percival watches the objects go by and fails to ask the Fisher King about each procession. After the feast ends, Percival retires to his room, and once awake from slumber, discovers that the castle is in ruin and everyone gone. Over time Percival discovers that the failure to ask about the procession causes the Fisher King’s wound to remain unhealed.” I too feel a deep resentment when someone fails to ask me what’s wrong after I’ve made it abundantly clear I want them to ask me what’s the matter.
5. The idea of just lounging around in a castle demanding everyone watch my weird theatrical dinner parties and then throwing a tantrum and leaving in the middle of the night when my guests fail to ask me “So what do the candelabrum represent?” would really suit my temperament down to the ground.
6. My ideal relationship to the Grail Quest would be “laying around while other people ask me about it.”
7. There is a possible homoerotic interpretation of my narrative, which is unexpectedly cut off halfway.
8. I too contain surprising pagan, anti-Grail undertones.
9. One of my favorite ways to let people know I’m not feeling well is to withdraw and then make them guess.
10. The Disney character I most strongly identify with is the Beast before he learns how not to emotionally attack everyone around him, so.
Yay! so much medieval goodness today. The Fisher King is totally like Percival’s bad boyfriend; he won’t just tell him what the damn problem is and is obsessively fixated on his own groin.
He’s also Percival’s uncle (at least in the version I’m familiar with)…
And he’s totally like this weird old smelly (great)uncle we all have, constantly being obsessed with his health problems nobody wants to hear details about.
“9. One of my favorite ways to let people know I’m not feeling well is to withdraw and then make them guess.”
Well, to be fair, this is the best way to let people know about emotional distress.
I too get annoyed when people don’t inquire about the specific , symbol heavy referencesin my dinner party platings so I take that to mean I’m good for being a Fisher King or Hannibal Lecter
Montrachet is an A+ substitute for the blood of Christ!
Or potentially a successor to Judy Chicago
All of this. Though 1 and 2 especially. I just feel things really strongly, okay, it’s not my fault I’m made up of nothing but EMOTIONS.
“9. One of my favorite ways to let people know I’m not feeling well is to withdraw and then make them guess.”
I sometimes do this even when I’m feeling pretty okay, so I think I could really knock this Fisher King job out of the park, for certain passive-aggressive values of knock out of the park.
I have a Never Healing Surgical Incision from August, so I’m going to have to fight you for the Fisher King title unless you also have a magically unhealing wound.
Meanwhile, I will greatly award anyone who can shove a grail (or magical spear/lance) up against my butt and heal it. And by “greatly award” I mean I’ll make you fudge or cookies or something. Basically, save me from having to make yet another $50 copay to get this thing looked at.
Per Wikipedia: “In Malory’s work specifically, the Fisher King is healed by Galahad, who pours the blood from the lance onto the king to heal his wounds.”
It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that was Thomas Malory and not a typo.
I would pay real money for a retelling of Le Morte D’Arthur written by Mallory-of-the-Toast
Mallory, please make this your next book.
For real that sounds FANTASTIC.
Unrelatedly, for my next Johnlock fanfic I want to do a retelling of one of the stories out of Le Morte D’Arthur. I’m not sure which one yet. Haven’t started yet either bc I’ve been focusing on getting my seminar ready for this job interview I have next week, on trying to recover from the miscarriage, and on looting necromancer caves in Oblivion.
You should do the one where some guy chases Lancelot up into a tree in his underwear!
I would read that (and any other Johnlock you happen to have lying around).
Just imagine the poor first year students being assigned Malory’s Morte D’Arthur, and accidentally reading Mallory’s Morte D’Arthur. It would create a whole new academic subcategory.
Okay, at this point I’m pretty sure that The Toast is simply Mallory’s vehicle to recruit a harem of men and women with advanced degrees in Medieval Studies.
I, for one, gladly welcome our new overlord and Queen. That way, my degree is finally useful!
Well, I’m glad SOMEONE’S trying to recruit us. Otherwise I’ve embarked on a fruitless academic career.
I am completely OK with this, although my degree in Medieval Studies (and archeology) is naught but a bachelors…I do however hold a dual degree in nursing…
Mallory, are you feeling okay? I hope you’re feeling okay. Please tell me about your general state of health!
Splendid. What on earth makes you think otherwise?
OH THANK GOD the internet works again!
It’s possible that my Siamese cat is already The Fisher King. He, too, is abundantly qualified.
okay but what kind of fisher stevens would you make?
I misread the title as “I would make an excellent fisher cat”
number 7… “cut off halfway.”
I see what you did there.
Wait, homoerotic subtext? WHERE??!
BRING IT TO ME IMMEDIATELY!!
So much of this is just #aboutme.
Though is there a role I could apply for which involves informing Lancelot of his various and varied idiocies? The guy drives me nuts. He just rides around the countryside falling off his horse whenever someone mentions Guinevere. And has to be rescued by maidens conveniently carrying pickaxes.
(I… may have been writing an essay about Lancelot this evening and it may have reminded me that he is a moron.)
So much of this is just #aboutme.
Though is there a role I could apply for which involves informing Lancelot of his various and varied idiocies? The guy drives me nuts. He just rides around the countryside falling off his horse whenever someone mentions Guinevere. And has to be rescued by maidens conveniently carrying pickaxes.
(I… may have been writing an essay about Lancelot this evening and it may have reminded me that he is a moron.)
Well, I'm glad SOMEONE'S trying to recruit us. Otherwise I've embarked on a fruitless academic career.
Number two! Number two! Number two!
I am referring to number two on the list and how it describes me. I am not referring to doody.