Episode 106 - Cyrano de Birdgerac (Prince Ariel part 4)

## Book of Doug Touchstones

### Episode Features

* Fourth part of the second anniversary four-parter in which Carman reads Prince Ariel to Tyler, Gordie, and guest Brandon

## Featured Episode

* For more information on Prince Ariel, part 1, part 2, and part 3.

### Overall Plot

* They're at the island and Leander notes that there's no indication that men exist anywhere, even in the art, which seems to him, a man, like it might be a bad idea
* He wanders to the main palace and sees the princess and she's super hot
* The Princess wants to see Abricotine and Leander imitates a parrot to say what happened to her (or at least a heavily edited version) and also that men aren't awful and some flirty bits, to the princess's amusement and disbelief
* Abricotine returns and tells her story. Ariel-as-parrot says that the prince (himself) will die if he doesn't see the princess, which the princess couldn't care less about
* At dinner that night, Ariel imitates a canary, sings a real long love song, and uses a blue cat as a puppet so that he can eat at the dinner table
* Puppet!cat's paws are used to hold forks and also a melon for Ariel to eat
* Ariel follows Abricotine and the princess to the princess's room, where they chat about how hot he was and argue about how into it the princess really is
* Ariel wants to watch the princess get ready for bed but instead listens through the door as Abricotine tells the princess about monkeys, which the princess is super into
* Ariel immediately goes to catch some wild monkeys and then buys a little golden carriage and two trained monkeys in Paris
* He releases it in the princess's chambers and she loves it until she finds a love note in the carriage, which "both troubles and delights her"
* Ariel paints a self portrait holding her portrait with a line of poetry on top and hides it in the princess's room. The princess decides to burn because it's suspicious as anything, but Ariel steals it before they can.
* This continues for a while, cat and all, with Ariel zooming around the world to grab anything the princess mentions liking and showering her with more portraits
* The princess confesses to Abricotine that she's very scared of all of this. Ariel drops a love note into the middle of their conversation
* He teleports to a grotto she likes, where he (not invisibly) sings at her when she arrives. She faints from fear and he cares for her invisibly, which freaks her out more because she's into him when he's visible not but when he isn't
* Abricotine shows up and makes a Cupid and Psyche reference, basically saying that the princess should be into this strange invisible man
* Meanwhile, Fearavon gathers an army of men to invade the lady island. The princess calls on her Fairy Mom for help, but Fairy Mom is mad that her daughter is having a relationship with a man and refuses
* Leander poses as an Amazon and bribes him to leave the island alone. Fearavon takes the money and decides to attack anyway, so Leander kills him.
* Leander returns to the island, the two declare their love, Fearavon's army declares him their king, and he and the princess almost have a moment
* The Fairy Mom interrupts the moment and drags the princess away. Leander and the princess both beg her to let them be together but she refuses
* Gentille and the Greek Graces arrive and reveal that Gentille is the Fairy Mom's sister!
* Gentille vouches for Leander and arranges for everyone on the island to get married and the Fairy Queen moves the island to Leander's kingdom.

## Discussion Points

* Either Paris existed in mythtimes or else Ariel just wished himself to an alternate dimension
* Even the horse and the monkeys get names but the princess does not
* Fearavon was so mad because he was actually full of explosives
* d'Aulnoy went through something in the middle of this story and she used the second half of the story to work it out
* The way to fix this story is to make it a horror story from the princess's perspective
* The hat turned him into an anonymous internet user on the internet
* It's possible that d'Aulnoy was smart and not completely unaware of how this story goes
* The fairy really set him up to fail as a good person
* When the hosts are done with the podcast, they're going to finish off with all of the d'Aulnoy tales. And they will finish all of them.
* Total labels made by Gordie:
	+ Prince Ariel (amended to "only when invisible")
	+ Folly and the Bears

#### Notable Quotes

* Brandon: Chief Architect, Georgia O'Keefe...
* Carman: [Leander's] the worst parts of Reddit flying around invisibly.
* Carman: Abricotine is the only character in this story with her eyes open.

Brandon: If we could only get all these MRA birds out of the fucking island, everything would be great. She could actually make a change around here.

* Tyler: I mean, you guys gave me subterranean men. I think we can give you the Bechdel test.
* Cricket: Mrrrrp.
* Gordie: [d'Aulnoy] is an aphrodisiac.