professorhephaestus

[professorhephaestus]

1010 words The apprentices really love their ship.

"Has anyone figured out why Aphran theaters have two pools," asked Teddy to anyone in the mess who was listening.

The twelve apprentices sat at the long table in the middle of the Almanac's mess. The dining hall was smaller today—literally. When the Almanac transported Martian seismologists across the asteroid belt or made room for Vengorian engineers, the dining hall could expand to impossible sizes. This week, the Almanac was virtually empty and laptops, highlighters, composition notebooks, and Aphran scrolls were nestled between clay mugs. Teddy picked up a scroll and brushed Frosted Flakes off of it.

"I have seen Aphran theater," said Eigan, finger stroking his chin. While the rest of the apprentices were eating cereal, oatmeal, eggs, or toast, Eigan had opted for a small bowl of fruit. "In the Great Leaping Hall on Triton, for that matter. It was very excellent. But I've yet to see multi-level performances."

"If we're going to Neptune in a week, why can't we learn why then," said Hunter. Teddy frowned when Hunter kicked his boots up on the dining hall table, inches away from Jenny's plate. His nana would've thrown Hunter out of the kitchen.

"Because he wants us to do research," said Sanjena. "Because we're scholars, remember?"

Jenny hummed and twirled a pencil in her fingers. "Perhaps the performances in the lower pools are more interpretive?"

"Who knows," sighed Teddy. "Cast of Calm." His oblong bent casting wheel rolled up the scrolled in his palm—almost. The paper messily wrapped around the handle. "If we're lucky, Hephaestus will be so offended by our ignorance that he'll cancel the oral exam and do an impromptu lecture to shame us."

"Aphran leaping halls with multiple decks are used to reflect the speaking character's inner turmoil." Teddy jumped at the voice right at his back. He turned around on the mess bench to see a node of the Almanac had entered the mess with a carafe of orange juice. Their large black eyes looked at him without blinking, before turning to the rest of the group. "I transported a troupe of Aphran performers and theater crafters between Venus and Vesta before I was decommissioned. They spoke with great detail on the nature of multi-pooled leaping halls."

They'd been traveling on the ship for months at this point—you'd think Teddy would be used to nodes of the Almanac silently entering rooms.

"Al!" said Teddy, he slapped the nodes arm. It was like slapping a branch. "That's perfect. You just saved our asses."

"My pleasure," said the Almanac. They were still mastering human emotions, and remembered to smile many seconds to late.

Eigan was up in seconds to get a glass of Terrestrial orange juice. Teddy liked Al's orange juice, but didn't have the heart to tell the ship or the Martian prince that Almanac's orange juice tasted more like, well, tomato juice. But it was okay—the Almanac didn't know what an orange was.

But as the node poured the juice into Eigan's mug, the carafe fell to the ground. At the same time, the ship keeled, laptops, scrolls, and mugs skidding across the mess hall table. Hands shot out out to catch pens and notebooks, and casting wheels erupted around the table like fireworks to keep items from clattering to the deck. Eigan lost his hoofing, spilling juice and stumbling into Teddy's chest.

"Did we hit something," shouted Hunter. His boots were on the ground and started around him frantically. "Almanac, what the hell was that?"

"A cosmic dust storm, perhaps," said Eigan, who wasted no time collecting himself and extracting himself of the human he had stumbled into. A crisp circle of light appeared at Eigan's palm. "My apologies, Theodore. Cast of Streams."

Teddy watched as the orange juice lifted out of his sweater and evaporated in the air.

"Not at all, Prince Eigan—and my apologies," said the Almanac. "That was my doing. I am experiencing some turmoil. We are a standard day out from the Aphran Capitol port on Neptune. There will be ships there, many that I will undoubtedly know. I am... nervous about my reception after being so unceremoniously decommissioned."

Teddy lifted up a sneaker as roots reached up around the pool of orange juice, tendrils absorbing the spill. The Almanac stooped down to pick up the broken glass.

"You were decommissioned a century ago, Al," said Teddy. "How many ships from back then are still around? How many would even care?"

The Almanac node did that slow, unnatural head turn without moving the rest of their body. They locked eyes with Teddy.

"Starships have lifespans of centuries, Apprentice Theodore. Millenia, even, depending on a ship's use. Gen the number of ships at this particular port, the likelihood of my running into a ship from my previous life is high. And ships are comparative, curious, and exacting. They will no doubt inquire after my failure."

The chorus of "no!" and "what?" and "Almanac, you're not a failure" rose up in the mess. It was silenced by turbulence that rattled the sunstone lamps scattered around the table.

"My apologies," said Almanac. "The rough starfaring will come and go in waves."

"Almanac, isn't transporting a Martian rector's rite a big deal?" asked Jenny.

"Yeah," said Teddy, "I bet none of those ships have ever been part of a Solar Trial!"

That's when Xavyn burst into the mess with an unfurled scroll that was the same height as her.

"Hi, everyone! Oh, hi, Almanac. Nice shiny glass you got there," she twittered. "Apprentices! The Professor would like all of you to memorize this map of Triton before we touch down because it will help your Aphran casts? Which is the lecture this afternoon, by the way! Aphran migratory patterns! Which, by the way, sun and stars, did you all do reading on the Port of Triton? As a Vengorian, we love good engineering, and the starroot ships there are spectacular. Huge deals. Very prestigious. I can't wait—Cosmos, I'm sorry, Almanac, are we going through a microdust storm? What's with all this turbulence?"

[professorhephaestus]

Novel Effects of "The Cast of Binding" on Compatible Martian-Terrestrial Pairs

Read on AO3 Pairing: Tom/Hephaestus Rating: Mature Word Count: 10,958 words Summary: Hephaestus, son of Crucibus, is an incredibly intelligent, magically proficient, system-renown rector—a generational scholar. And for some reason this goofy human keeps showing up in his dreams.

Solar Trials FAQ here.

[professorhephaestus]

don't mind me

[professorhephaestus]

don't mind me! just coughing and throwing up blood thinking about Tom. JUST A GOOFY GUY FROM EAST TEXAS WHO REFERS TO HIS PARTNER AS "THE PROFESSOR"

*screaming* *shaking* (i think of his stupid blue jumpsuit and gnaw on drywall)

[professorhephaestus]

It's unfortunate but I do think Tom genuinely LOVES the fourth of July...put that dude on the grill. Hephaestus doesn't get it. how old is this country in 2003ish? 227 years old? Red heavens he has an aunt who is that age, who cares. He can't eat meat, no he doesn't want a burger. Why don't Terrestrials have more global holidays? Or holidays based on astrological phenomenon? Why do a lot of their holidays involve explosions? Tom listens to this diatribe on his third beer like "don't overthink it buddy you wanna play catch"

#what if Hephaestus had no hand eye coordination #and can NOT catch a baseball to save his life #and repeatedly gets hit in the face #and has to whip out a casting wheel to slow the balls down #no he's never developed this particular skill when in the course of the TWO MOONS has he EVER needed to CATCH something #Tom played baseball in high school and finds this extremely amusing #"looks like there's cool stuff that I can do that you can't huh :)"

[professorhephaestus]

this feels very tom + jeff to me

100% they have said this or will say this

[professorhephaestus]

solar trial updates

the thing is that glen powell and his negative amount of lips could play tom aubrey and that should scare you. TERRRIFY you

i'm 19k words into a 0th draft of another novel so i'm learning how to write! solar trails novel should be ready by 2029 ✨:)✨ AU hephaestus is in it so that's exciting to me

i'm working on two new graphic novels sorry :);;;

[professorhephaestus]

solar trials update: i'm trying to teach myself how to write novels by working on a completely different story so 🙂

[professorhephaestus]

apprentices: so cool we're gonna be wizards what are we learning in class today professor hephaestus

hephaestus: math. just math. you idiots can't map stars without math. we're doing basic geometry. counting. numbers. 1 2 3 and so forth

[professorhephaestus]

[professorhephaestus]

In every photo of Tom and Hephaestus, there's Tom, A Normal Human Man Who's Excited To Be There and then there's:

[professorhephaestus]

Some disorganized rambling on toxic behavior and the times when Tom and Hephaestus actually truly hate each other:

Above all, Tom's main concern is the well-being of the apprentices, while Hephaestus's main concern is getting as many of them to pass the Trials as possible. He does not care about how banged up or damaged they get physically or psychologically during this process. He is entirely ego driven. These are his students, who happen to be Terrestrials, and he loathes them for that, but he also wants to cement his reputation as the greatest rector in Martian history. So he maximizes his pedagogy and adapts it for Terrestrials, while also heartlessly coaching the students past their limits because, dammit, he will make rectors out of each of them.

(Yes, his character arc is a massive shift toward humility and empathy but that comes later.)

When Tom and Hephaestus are most at odds is when Tom is gritting his teeth, seething, and furious at what Hephaestus is willing to do to prepare these students for this test. It's impossible to explain to Hephaestus that these kids signed up to train for this, but they didn't sign up for...trauma? Youre traumatizing them? At the beginning it's all fun and games—battling cosmic beasts, finding rare potion ingredients, going to the furthest reaches of the solar system..but after a while Tom can see that Hephaestus is kind of being pointlessly hard on them. He makes them do impossible tasks. He has them clawing their way out of these unimaginable battles. And then Tom has to watch Hephaestus be a bad teacher and belittle/dismiss/humiliate these kids simply because they're from earth.

Hephaestus does eventually apologize for everything, but man. Sheesh. There's the initial hate between Tom and Hephaestus because "my colleague is an arrogant bigot" and the secondary hate because "my colleague is an arrogant bigot who doesn't mind giving 20 year olds PTSD to enhance his scholarly reputation."

I Also ALSO ALSO think that Hephaestus at some point resents Tom for his (distinctly American) idealism and naivete. Tom has a Manifest Destiny streak in him that Hephaestus HATES, and acts like the selection of these students for the Trials is part of some grand narrative of Mankind. It's an extremely frustratingly earth-centric POV. Like, don’t get it twisted for a second—Hephaestus isn't training these kids so that they may advance the human species. He is training them to be stewards of a magic that is millions of years old and to be scholars that develop it further. It's rather annoying that Tom is approaching this like mankind's greatest feat. That Tom complains that the way these students become rectors is just as important as them becoming rectors at all. The story has to be right. This has to be a good and meaningful experience for them. Tom shamelessly projects his own belief that anything that has to do with space should be a meaningful, pristine, incredible adventure. And Hephaestus is kind of ruining that for him—whoops, I mean—for them. They're kids...

Hephaestus would maintain that they are not children. They are rectors-in-training. They all grasped the crook to become empowered. They signed up for this.

Anyway, I have to figure out a way for them to fall in love with each other despite actively having hated each other at some points in this story lmao.

[professorhephaestus]

my favorite thing about hephaestus's character design is the loc of hair that could be tucked behind his horn or ear but he doesn't---in fact i'm sure he wakes up and carefully pulls out a single loc of hair to dangle across his forehead and cheek and checks the mirror and then goes to lecture

[professorhephaestus]

Im gonna be insufferable and send a spotify link but would Tom Aubrey my fellow Texan like Nanci Griffith?

https://open.spotify.com/track/2nmZJbYYPnlU1LlCaRxc6u?si=1EzZ8gAWQr6KhwXG93Jd7A&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A5fI4lHlUm9JuuOVSooXUku

thank you for turning me on to Nanci Griffith because yes, confirmed, Tom would put this on in his bunk on the Almanac and open his journal but then not write anything and stare out a window with his chin on his hand

[professorhephaestus]

okay this might be like Bitty's eyes--if you read check please there were a few comics where bitty's eyes got SO huge and no one stopped me. no one pulled me aside and said "ngozi bitty's eyes are too big. his character design is fucking insane rn. he's mostly eye. you need to scale it back"

so, in the same way, if tom gets to be too much of a cornball you have to put a hand on my shoulder and say "you goobered him too hard. Thomas Aubrey is too sweet and dweeby, even for a fictional man. half of his vocabulary is gosh and y'all. you need to degoober him."

but always encourage me to make hephaestus more of a condescending asshole

[professorhephaestus]

Tom opening up his high school yearbook in 1986: What?! Haha, y'all—okay, real funny. Didja see this? "Senior superlatives, Thomas Aubrey—Most Likely To Get Willingly Abducted By Aliens." Whaaat! Y'all—just because I run the astronomy club????? Huh?....Well, space is cool. Come on, now. Oh my gosh. This is hilarious.

[professorhephaestus]

you: yeah can we get some words? a comic? an illustration? doesn't even have to be of hephaestus it can be the kidds...how does the ship look like? You've only drawn one other alien species? map of the martian capitol? thoughts on Mars's currency-free economy?

me: Tom is absolutely obsessed with Looney Tunes. Yes, I said Looney Tunes. You see, they were pretty popular in the late 90s and early 00s so I'm imagining that he has some variation of Taz socks or like a Taz coffee mug. He specifically would like Taz. He also likes Bugs. Frankly, I believe he thinks all of those little cartoons are a hoot. He absolutely has never seen any of the shows but he just likes how they look. He went to Six Flags Fiesta Texas when it first opened in 1992 because he also likes roller coasters.