The Princess Blog's Five-Year Blogiversary Extravaganza!
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
Can you believe I've been writing articles about princesses for five years? I still remember posting a list of 100 princesses for my 100th post, and now I have over 600 posts and counting! That's a lot of princesses! For most blogiversaries, I've shared free or deeply discounted Kindle copies of my books, but unfortunately, I haven't written anything new this year. Instead, I've been busy getting settled in my new castle, so I filmed this mini-music video in some of my favorite rooms as a video tour. I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to pause it to get a closer look at some of my new furnishings and old memorabilia. Let me know how many princess easter eggs you can spot in the background!
As for what's next, I'm very excited to announce that I've applied to be a big sister through the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America in the hopes of sharing my experiences with a special little girl, attending more princess events, and getting a better grasp on the modern generation's perspective of princess media. I hope that this experience can inspire me to write more princess stories that will appeal to the youth of today. I know I'm way behind on my Story Saturdays, so let me know if that's something you would like to see more of. It would also be nice to spend time with someone who gets just as excited about princesses as I do!
As another special treat, I reached out on my Facebook page for suggestions about what to post for my 5th anniversary. One of my favorites was the five reasons that princesses are still relevant and important. Here are my thoughts on the subject. Feel free to share yours in the comments as well!
1. They Inspire Us To Be Our Best Selves.
As we get older, it's easy to get set in our ways and forget the things that motivate us to work hard, chase after our dreams, and spread love everywhere we go. Young and older people alike need these stories to remind them to keep fighting for their happily ever after.
2. It's Harder Than Ever to Remember to Be Kind and Courageous.
In today's politically charged society, many people get caught up in arguments both online and in real life with others who refuse to accept to any opinion outside of their own. Princesses remind us to be patient and listen to others with respect and understanding so we can live in a more harmonious world.
3. Escapism Is an Important Aspect of Daily Life.
Life is hard, and it only gets harder with age. It is important and healthy to spend a little time each day imagining a place that's just a little more magical, grand, and loving than the one we live in. These little bursts of escapism can help us relax and reduce stress throughout the rest of our day.
4. They Let Girls Know It's Okay to Still Be Girls.
In a society where gender fluidity is being encouraged more than ever, princesses validate feminine girls to be themselves and not feel like they need to change to match the societal norms. Of course, there are plenty of modern princesses for girls who feel more masculine as well.
5. They Make Us Feel Empowered.
By watching princesses live out our dreams, we can feel reassured that our big decisions like moving away from home, attending a big social event, applying for a competitive job, or starting a family can lead to our own happily ever afters, taking the fear and anxiety out of these decisions. After all, Cinderella never would have escaped her stepfamily if she didn't go to the ball, Ariel never would have been able to explore the human world if she didn't trade her voice to Ursula, and Tiana never would have met Naveen if she didn't work so diligently to save up for her restaurant.
I hope you've enjoyed reading my posts for these past five years. I've loved seeing all of your recommendations and hearing your opinions, even if they differ from my own. Let me know if you have a favorite subject to read about. I have no plans to stop blogging. Princesses are an ever-expanding and timeless subject that will always provide new media to explore. Maybe someday we'll even see some new fairy tale adaptations. Thank you for sticking with me these past five years, and here's to five more!
I love this post!!! I'm honored you chose my idea to write about :) As I get older (in my thirties already) I find life does indeed stay challenging and it's a constant temptation to turn into more of a villain. It would be easy to give into despair, bitterness, anger and coldheartedness. I find I still need Princesses on a regular basis to encourage hope in a happily ever after, dreams coming true (when many haven't), and as a model to be kind and generous at all times. Thank you for sharing a Princess mentality with me and for this community <3
I completely feel you on the villain sentiment! I lose my patience a lot more than I care to admit lately. Thank you for the fantastic suggestion! I'm glad you enjoy reading my posts. Take care! :)
Sugar said…
Wow you sound very similar to rapunzel when you sing! I think one important thing about princesses is that they teach you that being nice isn't a weakness, that not every girl should be a kick ass princess and that's okay, and that a nice dress and sparkly tiara can be a symbol of strength as much as an armor and a sword. I'm glad I found this site!
Only one month after my recent obsession with Find Me in Paris , the time-traveling ballerina princess drama dropped its third and final season on Hulu today. Though somewhat predictable, this season offered a satisfying conclusion to the show's unique concept that combined dance with science fiction and tied up all remaining loose ends from the previous seasons. We finally learned the truth about Lena's birth and why she's always being chased by anyone remotely interested in time travel. Nearly every character got paired off at the end, even if it meant some questionable decisions on behalf of the writers. The season also offered some of the most beautiful dance sequences in the show yet for its key story moments. While I could have done without the repetitive recap sequences, the final episodes made it clear that this was always meant to be the end and gave the cast and crew many happy memories to look back upon. The final season of Find Me in Paris incorporated the ...
Yesterday, the Starz network released the series finale of The Spanish Princess , concluding The White Queen trilogy of miniseries that began in 2013. Based on a book series called The Cousins' War by Phillippa Gregory , the trilogy covers the women who stood behind the men in power in the English monarchy from 1464 to the 1530s, preceding the first two sovereign queens, Mary and Elizabeth. The White Queen , The White Princess , and The Spanish Princess grant us a rare opportunity to see what life was like for medieval monarchs. Watching them reminded me of why I prefer the fairy tale versions of royalty. Those stories do not contain the gory deaths, gruesome births, and invasive politics that historical dramatizations like these exemplify. In fact, I had very little interest in watching the second season of The Spanish Princess until I watched some historical videos and learned that the king that Catherine of Aragon was married to was none other than King...
It's been ten years since LoliRock first took the stage on Netflix, and rumors of a potential third season inspired me to watch the show again as I did with Winx Club , which recently previewed its upcoming reboot in Italy . LoliRock is a French Magical Girl show about a lost princess who must master her new powers while trying to liberate a mysterious faraway kingdom. It hits all the right plot notes to fit the Magical Girl algorithm, but poor writing prevents it from being a memorable entry in the genre. One thing that makes LoliRock unique is its focus on music. The three main characters aren't only magical princesses from other worlds but members of a hit rock band that performs full-length music videos at the end of each episode. Unfortunately, the overly synthesized sound of these songs is not very appealing to me, and I ended up skipping over them during my rewatch. The main character in LoliRock is Iris, a beautiful girl who loves to sing that was r...
Today is a major accomplishment for me. I started this blog 100 days ago, and I've managed to write a new post in it every day since then. Some of the topics were easier to come up with than others. I also had to go back and edit some after the fact due to poor proofreading. Speaking of which, I'm really sorry about the disastrous short story from my first Story Saturday post . The whole thing was written on my phone on the way to a Mermaid Art Show event in San Diego, so I was a little distracted. I promise to put more effort into future Story Saturdays, which should be easier now that I will no longer be writing new posts every day. Don't worry, though. I will still keep everyone informed of the latest princess news and review all the new princess movies and specials. Without further ado, in celebration of my 100th post, here is a list of 100 princesses with all of the posts I've made about them (in no particular order). Thank you so much for reading my blog. 1-11:...
I've been seeing several viral posts recently about historical fashion lately. One was a gallery of women's fashion every year from 1784 to 1970 , and another was a video re-enactment of how women got dressed in the 18th century . These got me thinking about some of my favorite princess fashions. Though princesses are not known to be historically accurate , their fashions drew inspiration from many different places, and history is one of them. If you take a look at the way fashion has evolved over time, you can get an idea of which parts inspired the princess movies and which parts were altered. Something that surprised me in the re-enactment was how many pieces were assembled on a woman to give the appearance of a single dress. Today, most dresses are a single piece, but historically, gowns consisted of a corset bodice and a large skirt with a crinoline underneath. This was something I also noticed about Disney's theme park princesses . Though they look like one ...
Back in June when I found out that Netflix was making a movie adaptation of The School for Good and Evil , I went ahead and read the first book in the series . I liked the idea of a school for fairy tale characters, but it left me with a lot of questions regarding how changing their childhoods would alter their stories and why the author had such a superficial perception of good, evil, and girls in general. The Netflix adaptation resolved many of these issues by cutting irrelevant scenes and dialogue and making just enough minor changes to the plot to make it more coherent. Was it a perfect movie? It was never going to be, considering the source material. The filmmakers did a great job of salvaging whatever substance they could find from the book and turning it into a fun teenage romp with gorgeous costumes. The School for Good and Evil is about two girls named Sophie and Agatha who live in a backwoods town called Gavaldon. Though the other people in the town are cruel to Agatha a...
The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer is not a series I would have considered reading if it wasn't inspired by fairy tales, and even then, I had some hesitation. It takes place in a dystopian cyberpunk-like world filled with robots, aliens, and disease. It's hardly the setting you would expect for a story based on "Cinderella," yet the first book, Cinder , wholeheartedly embraces this odd combination. I was intrigued by the concept after reading a good short story about a robotic Cinderella, but this world was a bit too dark for my tastes. Though I have little interest in reading the rest of the series, I have to give the author credit for her creativity and passion. Cinder is a cyborg working as a mechanic in the dystopian city of New Beijing. She has several chance encounters with Prince Kai, who is in a marriage alliance with the wicked Queen Levana, an alien from the Lunar Kingdom with mind control powers. He hopes to get out of the alliance by finding the lost...
Another Aladdin production , another Jasmine song. With the recent addition of "Speechless," Jasmine has had a different solo song in every incarnation of the story. Yes, "A Whole New World" is consistently used as the romantic duet, but it is not seen as Jasmine's signature song in the same way that "Part of Your Wold," "Someday My Prince Will Come," or "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" is associated with their respective princesses because it is just as much Aladdin's song as it is Jasmine's. While Ariel and Rapunzel have many original solos scattered throughout The Little Mermaid and Tangled series , the Aladdin series sadly did not contain any original songs . As a result, Jasmine's songs are buried within so many different productions of Aladdin that even die-hard fans might have trouble finding them all. That's why I decided to compile this list of my top three Jasmine solos along with a little backgrou...
Just when I thought I'd seen every creative way to retell a fairy tale , a new series called The Princess Swap series showed up at my library. At first glance, Cinderella and the Beast (or, Beauty and the Glass Slipper) by Kim Bussing appears to be a simple case of mistaken identity as two princesses wind up in the wrong story. However, it is actually much more than that. In fact, these two misplaced heroines wind up exactly where they need to be to learn important lessons and grow into the iconic princesses they were meant to be. The book ages down its protagonists to 12 to match its ideal reader's age and forgoes the romance from these classic stories in favor of more relevant themes including friendship , forgiveness , and perseverance . It even has a touch of disability inclusion with Ella's glass leg. One minute, Ella is at home, minding her own business, and the next, she finds herself in an unfamiliar land surrounded by strangers. She learns that...
It's no secret that modern anime tends to be derivative. Almost every new animated show from the East tells the story of a character reincarnated into another world or a younger version of themselves. However, another trope, specifically among anime about royalty, has dominated the airwaves. Nearly every would-be anime princess in recent years begins her story with a broken engagement to a prince. This was the catalyst of everything from 2023's I'm Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness to last year's 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy and The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor . This season, a brand new show entitled I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons follows in their footsteps. The series begins with a noble lady named Leticia forced into an arranged marriage with Prince Clarke. To prepare her for her future as a princess, her parents send her to the castle for private finish...
Comments
As I get older (in my thirties already) I find life does indeed stay challenging and it's a constant temptation to turn into more of a villain. It would be easy to give into despair, bitterness, anger and coldheartedness. I find I still need Princesses on a regular basis to encourage hope in a happily ever after, dreams coming true (when many haven't), and as a model to be kind and generous at all times. Thank you for sharing a Princess mentality with me and for this community <3
I think one important thing about princesses is that they teach you that being nice isn't a weakness, that not every girl should be a kick ass princess and that's okay, and that a nice dress and sparkly tiara can be a symbol of strength as much as an armor and a sword.
I'm glad I found this site!