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 ...
I was on the fence about reviewing the new Snow White remake for a while, but since this is The Princess Blog, it's only fair . (See what I did there?) This movie has been the source of endless controversy over the past five years or so. Some of it was unfounded, particularly when it involved racist comments toward the lead actress , but some of it is justified. When the movie was first announced, I shared my thoughts about how the story of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" has already been retold countless times by other studios in a way that modernized it with respect toward the original fairy tale and didn't step on Walt Disney's legacy. Creating a blatant copy of the first feature-length animated movie of all time and taking away the one thing that made it special—the animation—is an insult to the animation medium as an art form. My stance on this has not changed, so here are my thoughts on this sham of a film. Ever since the backlash to Rachel Zegler...
It's been a bit of a wait, but Rainbow SpA has delivered on their promise of an original animated mermaid show ! From the creators of Winx Club , Mermaid Magic premiered on Netflix a few days ago with ten fun-filled episodes. Although the show didn't have quite as much underwater content as I was hoping for, it's a solid new Magical Girl series with beautiful animation and a female-empowering plot. I was thrilled to dive into the world of Merlinda, Sasha, and Nerissa and learn about their incredible powers on their journey to save Mertropia (originally called Mertropolis) pirates, witches, and toxic waste. The first season ended on a satisfying note with the potential for new adventures in future seasons. Merlinda is the sheltered princess of Mertropia who leaps into action when she overhears a conversation about her father using up his life force to protect the kingdom. If she can travel to the dangerous surface world through a magic portal and recover five Neptune P...
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...
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...
Almost two years ago, Disney announced that they were working on a spinoff series to Sofia the First . The best place to reveal new updates about this mysterious series would have been the D23 Expo , which took place in Anaheim last weekend. Instead, Disney Jr. quietly posted on Instagram today that we can expect to see the new series, Sofia the First: Royal Magic on Disney+ in 2026. This is fantastic news if it's true, but Disney has broken promises on many other upcoming shows over the upcoming years, so it's a good idea to take all their announcements with a grain of salt until there is something more substantial like a trailer or release date. Still, it's exciting to have a title and more information about the series. Unlike the original announcement about it being a spinoff like Elena of Avalor , the show will now be a direct sequel that continues Sofia's adventures after graduating from Royal Prep . The official summary is as follows: "Sofia the Firs...
For those of you who aren't savvy in the world of underground Hollywood, there is a studio called The Asylum , whose sole purpose is to create low-budget imitations of popular movies in the hopes that an old granny will forget her glasses while shopping and buy one on DVD for her grandkids, thinking it's that big blockbuster movie they're always yapping on about. When they set their sights on an upcoming release from a major studio, they rush to get their imitation out before or around the same time as the one they're mimicking so they can pretend that they came up with the idea first. The Princess Twins of Legendale was not produced by The Asylum, but it feels like it easily could have been. In actuality, it was produced by a modern toy company called MGA Entertainment , which is famous for making Bratz and L.O.L. Surprise dolls. You would think that a toy company producing a low-budget movie would only do so with the intention of selling toys, but surprisingly, my...
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Rose of Versailles anime , MAPPA launched a brand new movie that was licensed by Netflix to retell the story using updated music and animation. The Rose of Versailles sort of works as a film, but it struggles with many of the same issues as the Sailor Moon Cosmos movies in that it tries to retell a long story for people with short attention spans and ends up skipping over many important details. The movie is presented as a disjointed musical. The first hour contains a stylized music video practically every five minutes to notate the passage of time and the emotional state of the characters. There was only one point where it looked like a character was singing the song, and it came so long after the more artsy videos that it was pretty jarring. The new adaptation of the 1972 anime retells the story about a woman named Oscar who is trained to be a French soldier to defend Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution. It co...
Four years ago, I shared a review of a cozy strategy game called Yes, Your Grace , in which players take on the role of a king who must wisely distribute resources to protect his family and his kingdom. Now, the game has released a sequel called Yes, Your Grace: Snowfall, in which the stakes have been raised exponentially. Snowfall features similar graphics and gameplay to the original, albeit with some small updates, along with a significantly darker tone. Players begin as King Eryk, the protagonist from the first game, but things quickly take a turn for the worse with his circumstances and health, and Queen Aurelea must step in to protect what's most dear to them. The game begins by allowing players to input over their story decisions from the first Yes, Your Grace. For those of us who played it almost five years ago, it might be hard to remember what those decisions were. This task can be bypassed by asking the advisor to make the best decisions, or just give it your best guess....
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:...
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!