Can you believe I've been blogging about princesses for the past eight years? How time flies! I like to do something special each year for my blogiversary. A few years ago, I filmed a special music video. This time, it's something I haven't done in over five years. I wrote a new book! That's right, folks. We're finally getting a new fairy tale novella. Titania's Reflection is a combined retelling of "Fairer-than-a-Fairy" and Shakespeare's classic A Midsummer Night's Dream. It's currently available on Amazon in ebook, audiobook, and paperback formats. If you've enjoyed my other works in the past, you should absolutely check this one out! It's like nothing I've ever done before.
Titania's Reflection would not exist if it weren't for all the princess-related research I do for my blog. I first discovered "Fairer-than-a-Fairy" when I spent a winter reading all twelve of Andrew Lang's Fairy Books looking for hidden gems. This story stood out to me as one that should get more exposure. It had some fascinating imagery, including a talking rainbow and a castle suspended in the air by four chains, and was surprisingly progressive because it contained a princess who wakes a sleeping prince instead of the other way around. It also contains a fascinating love story in which the princess fell in love with the prince without ever knowing what he looked like, showing that real love isn't about appearances. I knew I wanted to explore this fairy tale further, but I wasn't sure how at the time. So I continued blogging and waited for inspiration to strike.
Among the book deals I received this year, no series stood out to me quite as much as Sara Farnsworth's Realms of Caelia, which begins with Beauty in the Tower, a combined retelling of "Rapunzel" and "Sleeping Beauty." Her books made me realize that the best way to enhance a story might be by combining it with other ones. That was when I remembered watching the 1999 film adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The world of the faeries presented there blended perfectly with the world that the young princess was spirited away to in "Fairer-than-a-Fairy." A Midsummer Night's Dream has been used as a backdrop for many other fantasy works, including Nickelodeon's The Other Kingdom, Disney's Gargoyles, and a series of novellas by Tara Grayce. The Shakespearean classic also helped me come up with built-in names for all of the characters, since only the wicked fairy in "Fairer-than-a-Fairy" had a real name, which I replaced with Titania. The princess in the book is named "Fairer-than-a-Fairy," but that's way too much of a mouthful, so I had Titania call her Hermia instead.
Another inspiration for this book was the musical Between the Lines, which was based on a novel and concluded with a lovely message about creativity and sharing your story with the world. I was obsessed with this musical for a few months. It was one of the biggest catalysts that motivated me to start writing again. Its plot about a fictional character who falls in love with a girl from the real world gave me a lot of ideas for developing the dynamics of Hermia's relationship with Lysander, a prince trapped in the reflection of a rainbow. Helena and Demetrius were fun characters to write because I based both of them on the modern warrior archetype, which wasn't as popular in Shakespeare's time, at least for female characters. They created just enough drama to flesh out the fairy tale into a full-length book.
As I celebrate eight years of blogging about princesses, I'm thrilled to share my latest creation, Titania's Reflection, a unique retelling of "Fairer-than-a-Fairy" and A Midsummer Night's Dream. This novella would not have been possible without the research and inspiration I've gathered over the years. With its blend of fascinating imagery, progressive themes, and Shakespearean magic, Titania's Reflection is a true labor of love. If you've enjoyed my previous works, I invite you to experience this new tale, now available on Amazon in ebook, audiobook, and paperback formats. Thank you for joining me on this journey, and I look forward to sharing more princess-themed adventures with you in the years to come!
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 ...
The first time I saw preview footage from Bye Sweet Carole , I thought it had been rotoscoped from Disney's Beauty and the Beast . It wasn't, but this perception was a result of the game's distinct look that is reminiscent of hand-drawn films from Disney's Renaissance and Golden Age eras. The nostalgic aesthetic is a huge selling point for the game. It is difficult to find anything in the modern era that recreates this style so perfectly. The game's protagonist, Lana, bears features that are similar to the character models for both Belle and Snow White. It is not unheard of for a video game to use hand-drawn animation. Dragon's Lair and Cuphead are some examples of this. However, it is an exceptionally rare medium for interactive storytelling due to the amount of time it takes to animate every possible player scenario. Few people are willing to put this amount of time and effort into modern games because of how much easier it is to take advantage of new tec...
It seems like everyone was talking about the new Winx Club reboot prior to its release. Now that it's finally out, no one seems to care anymore. If you're looking for a place to discuss your favorite fairy princesses (and some awesome non-princess fairies), I've got you covered. Winx Club: The Magic Is Back uses a tongue-in-cheek tagline as a promise that this show will deliver more of the original magic of Winx than the horrendous live-action Fate: The Winx Saga , which was both a commercial and technical failure. Does it deliver on that promise? For the most part, yes. This reboot starts over from the beginning of Bloom's story, with lots of Easter eggs for fans of the original 2004 Italian cartoon, along with new characters and plot points to keep it feeling fresh. Since Winx Club has been around for over 20 years, it's been rebooted a few times to prevent the characters from aging out of their target age group. Yet, none of the reboots thus far have successfu...
When I wrote my series of fairy tale origin posts , one major story that I skipped was "Sleeping Beauty." It wasn't because I didn't care for this story as much as the others, but instead that it had a less complex narrative of changing with the times . In fact, this fairy tale is so simple that no matter how many updates modern adaptations incorporate, it is rarely altered so drastically from its roots to the point of being unrecognizable, except in the case of a ridiculous 2016 horror movie called The Curse of Sleeping Beauty . Of all the movies I argued against depicting the theme of "Be pretty, girls, and things might work out," Sleeping Beauty is the biggest outlier. It is probably for this reason that it is the only Disney Princess movie that did not get a direct live-action remake , but instead a creative reimagining with Maleficent , which focused on the more active villain than the mostly passive princess. Determining how much Sleeping Beauty h...
Bye Sweet Carole is a horror adventure game that is entirely hand-drawn in the style of classic Disney movies. It has been in the works for about four years, which seems reasonable, considering how time-consuming it is to draw every frame by hand in the style of Dragon's Lair . The gameplay is inspired by an old Super Nintendo game called Clock Tower , but its plot, themes, and overall vibe resemble a more obscure point-and-click adventure game called Tsioque . Although Bye Sweet Carole is classified as horror, it is not particularly scary and is made to appeal to the Disney Princess crowd, which has a tepid relationship with horror . A better description of the game's genre would be "psychological thriller," which tends to be reserved for movies and books, even though many games fit this genre as well. Bye Sweet Carole tells the story of Lana, who lives in a Gothic-inspired orphanage called Bunny Hall in Victorian England. She spends the majority of the game chas...
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...
While not technically a princess movie, Wicked is quite possibly the most high-profile release of the year with a princess-like character, G(a)linda. I have been a huge fan of the Broadway show for almost 20 years and know it by heart, so this release was a pretty big deal to me as it was to many other die-hard fans. Many were concerned about the fact that the play was split into two films--one for each act. Now that I've seen it, I have to say that I understand this decision. There is so much that happens in the musical that forcing it all into a single movie would feel overloaded. The longer runtime gives the story a chance to breathe while adding more exposition to enhance the phenomenal characters and plot. As an added bonus, there were lots of Easter eggs referencing the original 1939 Wizard of Oz movie that inspired Wicked as well as an anticipated cameo from two beloved Broadway performers. Wicked is the story of Elphaba Thropp, who is better known a...
Thirty years ago, it would have been considered a crime to twist the sweet, gentle princess archetype into a cold-blooded murderer. Times have changed . Today, the type of violent nature required for horror movie leads is not so far off from how modern princesses act . That's why it's not too surprising that the niche fairy tale horror genre has increased in popularity over the past couple of years. In 2024 alone, there have been three gruesome, twisted princess films, two of which were based on the same fairy tale . Cinderella's Revenge , Cinderella's Curse , and The Little Mermaid all take a beloved protagonist known for her kind-hearted nature and turn her into a killer. Is there an audience for this growing trend, or is it merely a passing fad? The concept of combining the traditionally family-friendly fairy tale genre with the darker, more adult horror genre is not entirely novel. Original versions of fairy tales had many dark elements before they were Disney...
This week, I'm going to talk about different types of princesses, beginning with digital ones. I am no expert on video games, but princesses have been a big part of them ever since the NES era of the 1980s. They have become a staple of the ever evolving technology. The two most famous video game princesses are Zelda from The Legend of Zelda , a series that began in 1986, and Peach, who evolved from Princess Toadstool in the Super Mario Bros. series that started 1985. Though they both began as stereotypical blonde princesses in pink dresses who needed to be rescued by the hero of their corresponding game, Peach and Zelda each stand out as very different characters. I would say it's no contest which one of them is the better princess. Even though Zelda began as a damsel in distress, the many incarnations of the series have evolved her into a wise, graceful, and confident leader. In many ways, she is no more of a damsel in distress than Princess Leia is from St...
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:...
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