#snowspelled

The evening of the Spring Equinox was cool and balmy, just as the weather wizards had--for once!--reliably predicted. The glittering guest list for the Harwoods' annual ball was exactly to Amy Standish's design. As she prepared to descend into the lake that gently rippled, reflecting the full moon and stars, outside the grandeur of Harwood House, Amy knew she had organized the most important night of her life to absolute perfection. The only tiny, insignificant task left to do was to propose marriage to the right man by the end of this evening. Then she would finally win everything she had ever dreamed of, and it would be utterly perfect. She knew it.

-- Spellswept

Of course, a sensible woman would never have accepted the invitation in the first place. To attend a week-long house party filled with bickering gentleman magicians, ruthless cutthroat lady politicians, and worst of all, my own infuriating ex-fiancé? Scarcely two months after I had scandalized all of our most intimate friends by jilting him? Utter madness.

-- Snowspelled

It was bad enough to be deprived of my new husband before our wedding night. It was utterly unjust to be tormented by nightmares weeks afterward as I slept, still alone, in our marital bed. For the ninth morning in a row, I woke up gasping and clawing at my throat, fighting to yank piercing thorns out from my skin...thorns that, of course, existed nowhere but in my dreams.

-- Thornbound

Dressing for a ball would always be a challenge for any lady who found it easier to analyze--from memory--an obscure spell from two centuries ago than to remember which sleeve lengths were currently fashionable across the nation. But dressing for a ball at Angland's first women's college of magic, where at least half the dancers were certain to add competitive spellwork to their costume and the enigmatic local fey were likely to make an appearance? That raised the standards--and the stakes--enormously.

-- Moontangled

There was this much to be said, Honoria supposed, for comprehensive public and personal ruin: once all that she'd ever cared about had been ripped from her grasp, she no longer had anything left to fear.

-- Spellcloaked

There was a fine line between ambition and foolishness, and I had spent most of my life walking it. Still, as looked around the crowded, fey-lit dining tables at Thornfell College of Magic for Young Women on the eve of our second Winter Solstice, I was forced to admit that--just this once--I might have aimed my goals a bit too high.

So in honor of our protagonist, let's be a little bit academic and define our terms. Gender swapping is when a character is imagined in a different gender (most typically a make to female or vice versa swap in traditionally published literature but can and should be conceived to be a swap from one gender identity to another, inclusive of trans and nonbinary gender idenities) in a retelling, revival, adaptation, or even fanfic. This is about reimagining characters.

Gender role swapping, on the other hand, is about how society imagines gender roles. Gender roles are generally (and broadly) described as a series of traits and/or attitudes that a specific gender should ideally have or embody according to a specific culture's norms. Again, this is often imagined on a male/female binary, but can and should be imagined more broadly and inclusively for nonbinary, trans, and intersex gender identities. So to put it simply, while a gender swap is about individual characters on an individual level (and such a character may also take on the gender role of their new gender or not, as the author and story desire), a gender role swapped story is society focused. The characters are whatever genders they are, but the roles are what change. So for Snowspelled, this means that in a regency setting and culture, it's MEN who can be compromised, not women. Men are not expected to be involved in politics, women are. The society and societal expectations have changed from real-world standard, rather than a character being reimagined.

So when Cassandra Harwood is her society's first female magic user educated at the major institution and also the first female magic user to burn herself out, she is transgressing the gender roles of her society. She is also in just so, so much pain because she burned herself out via academic hubris and a desire to be recognized for her own merits that was so strong it turned self-damaging. In the process, she also jilted her fiancé Rajaram Wrexham, convinced her brother and sister-in-law that if she wasn't watched she would try to do more magic and actually kill herself this time, and lost her entire raison d'etre. Cassandra is not ok, and thanks to that, she ends up accidentally making a deal with a HELLA sketchy fae lord who is super excited to take her back to faerieland and hunt her for sport when she fails.

Wrexham is objectively not having that though. He is still head over heels for Cassandra, despite being pushed away HARD, and he is very much here to help her figure out how not to end up hunted to death. Also here to help Cassandra are Amy (her pregnant sister-in-law), Jonathan (her brother), and Misses Fennell and Banks (a couple who are working toward becoming the new political power couple but need training first). Admittedly, Misses Fennell and Banks are less explicitly there to help, but they are the route to Cassandra finding a new purpose in life.