Episode 105 - Horses are for Earners (Prince Ariel part 3)

## Book of Doug Touchstones

* The fairy queen from Abricotine's story is the first fairy to love a human, placing that pretty early on the timeline

### Episode Features

* Third 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 and part 2.

### Overall Plot

* Leander enters a forest and finds a young teen girl (Abricotine) being carried off by a bunch of buff robber men. Leander invisibly beats up the robbers and saves her.
* Ariel invisibly picks her up and puts her on the horse and tries to feed her some sugar-plums that he has. Abricotine is scared and won't eat them.
* Leander de-invisibles and chastises her for being scared. She says that she was only scared of an invisible man, to which he replies that no he was not invisible what is she even talking about
* Abricotine is more interested in leaving than telling her story but she owes him so... Meta story time!
* The bestest bestest fairy married a human prince, which  is a big no no in fairy culture
* She gets exiled, but her prince abandons her to live in a hole because he's not into her ability to spy on him constantly
* She also makes any lady he flirts with ugly
* She follows him and tells him she's pregnant and to please come home now, she'll give him lots of cool stuff including a mall.
* Prince insults her and refuses, so she teleports to an island with all of her stuff
* She grabs some Amazons, forces out all of the men, and names the new man-free island "The Island of Calm Delights."
* She births a princess and once the baby is grown, she goes back to fairy land
* BTW Abricotine is 200 years old and serves the princess and never saw any men until she got kidnapped
* Meta story part 2:
* The robbers were sent by Fearavon, who knows about and loves the princess from a portrait
* The robbers were too scared to go to the island because Amazons
* Abricotine, the royal birdkeeper, left the island to search for a parrot she lost, so the robbers nabbed her
* Leander wants to go to No-men-allowed island now
* Abricotine says no, they argue, and when she leaves without him, he follows invisibly

## Discussion Points

* d'Aulnoy's teen fanfic writer tendencies, including self-inserts, Mary Sue's, her fave OCs, and names that mean either nothing or super specific things
* Be honest about your invisible assailants or else your friends will think you're crying wolf and will beat you with stirrups
* Ariel is the Hyde to Leander's Jekyll
* Being invisible and smacking a girl in the face with candy without her consent is not a good first impression to make. She owes you nothing.
* The fairy queen was d'Aulnoy's self-insert character
* SurLaLune probably mistranslated 'mall' but here's the restaurants and stores in the prince's mall and also the one near the hosts in real life.
* Leander is definitely still trying to feed Abricotine sugar-plums while she tells her meta-story
* This story might be the first instance of the shrewish wife bothering the man in his (literal) man-cave
* Good band name
	+ Folly and the Bears
* This story is really, really sexist and fails the Bechdel test so hard
* Predictions:
	+ Correct predictions
		- Tyler gets subterranean race on a technicality because of hole prince
	+ Tyler: A third party will kill both of them
	+ Gordie: They're both going to live but they're going to start a confrontation that gets overpowered by a third party
	+ Gordie: They're going to become friends and start a crime-fighting team
	+ Brandon: the parrot comes back and marries Prince Ariel
* Stock twists: someone gives birth to themself, someone is Benjamin Button-ing, someone is themself from the future, it's a Bioshock story,

#### Notable Quotes

* Brandon: You may call me Prince Dirt-face, cuz...

Carman: Get that hat off!

Brandon: When I wear this hat, I am of the earth!

Carman: Get the hat off!

Brandon: Who wants money?

* Tyler: Is robber a good or bad profession for someone without object permanence?
* Gordie: Oh, you mean a few episodes ago *today*.
* Gordie: Even better than a calm delight is an illegal calm delight.
* Brandon: If this island has orange trees, everyone is in trouble.
* Carman: Am I in your seat, Cricket?
* Gordie: [Fearavon is] just a wide, flat Batman