✨ Welcome to the dev blog/ask blog/catch-all musings blog for Solar Trials. This is a project that I'm working on when I'm not working on graphic novels.
Solar Trials is the story of a wizard-scholar from Mars who has to teach Earth teenagers Martian magic. And he really does not want to do this! Joining him on this journey is a NASA flight surgeon named Tom. Tom is from Texas.
Read this prologue
How Hephaestus and Tom look like.
How Hephaestus and Tom meet.
More:
Writing Tag
Art Tag
Hephaestus and Tom answer Q's
Even More—F.A.Q. Under The Cut
Who is this Jeff people keep referring to...?
Jeff is Hephaestus's nickname! He hates it!
Wait, but what are the Solar Trials? I get that it's a story but is it going to be a graphic novel? A prose book?
my brother in surak, idek it is truly just vibes rn
In-universe, what are the Solar Trials?
The Solar Trials are a series of examinations taken in order to become a rector and receive the ability to cast. They are administered by the Royal Academy of Mars & the Oracle. They can only be taken once.
The entire story is about Hephaestus training his apprentices to stand the Trials, but truly the Trials are a framework for (a) a The Magic School Bus, Wayside Stories-esque story where Jeff and the kids cruise around our solar system, and (b) me to ship an endless assortment of characters. You know my secrets now.
What is a rector?
Rectors are wizard-scholars who act as agents of peace and who explore the cosmos on behalf of the Royal Academy of Mars. They're Jedi who write lots of big essays.
What is casting?
Casting is the art of channeling stellar magic. Spells are constellations. Casting wheels are the supernatural medium on which spells are performed.
Who can cast?
Only members of the Martian royal family and rectors have the ability to cast, and rectors-in-training also have the ability to cast while preparing for the Trials. OH! And sometimes very rarely, um, humans? (!!!)
And why does Hephaestus have to teach Earth kids?
Short answer: because he's stupid and got himself into this mess.
Long answer: instead of doing the more reasonable route and having Martian students apply to be his apprentices, he asked the Oracle to assign him apprentices. Rectors used to do this a lot back in the day.
So the Oracle assigned him ten Earth kids, one Martian, and one Titan from Jupiter. This is not what Hephaestus expected, wanted, or was prepared for. No backsies though
That's it! Have fun! You ever do an enormous amount of worldbuilding just so you can ship fictional characters in your brain???
On July 20, 1969, 109 hours and 42 minutes after launch, Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin entered the lunar lander ‘Eagle’, made a final check, and the Eagle undocked from the lunar orbiter ‘Columbia’, where the third member of the crew Michael Collins, stayed in orbit around the moon.
Partially manually piloted by Armstrong, the Eagle landed 0 degrees, 41 minutes, 15 seconds north moon latitude and 23 degrees, 26 minutes east moon longitude. Armstrong stepped out, and Aldrin followed 20 minutes later: human beings stepped on the moon for the first time. The two men spent 21 hours and 26 minutes on its surface.
One of the astounding aspects of the mission was the seeming simplicity of the technology used to get man to the moon. According to Oliver Gassmann, professor of Technology Management, the mobile phone in your pocket has one million times more memory than the Apollo 11’s computer. Same about the procesor: the latest phones typically have more than 100,000 times the processing power of the computer that landed man on the moon 50 years ago.
“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” –Neil Armstrong
(gifs from the documentary Chasing The Moon, 2019)
I NEED to know how old is everyone. like, in earth years? Martian years?
Tom and Hephaestus are both thirtyish years old, but Tom is about thirty in Earth years, and Hephaestus is thirty in Martian years. One year on Earth = .5 years on Mars.
And if you want to keep doing the math, this story takes place in 1999!
i cannot stress how annoying it is for everyone on their ship that Captain Aubrey and Professor Hephaestus are completely head over heels in love with each other but refuse to do anything about it it's everyone else's problem.
$20 says he has the Martian equivalent of a spreadsheet tracking what he said* prompting that response. He says it’s to better understand human cultures, but that’s a big fat lie.
*Also tracks the positions of major celestial bodies at each instance, the positions of minor celestial bodies included in their respective star signs, Tom’s clothes, his clothes, and what professional sport is currently “in season” in the US.
Teddy: In the long history of the rectorship and the Solar Trials, there have been few exceptions in the delay of this sacred test. In fact, I've found only three whole examples in the forty thousand year history of the Trials. Nevertheless, I present to you all this evening an inarguable reason for allowing me to take my test next series as opposed to this one.
Teddy: The Eagles are in the Super Bowl. And holy shit they have a really good chance.
Hephaestus: (covering his face, groaning, leaning on his rector's staff while Tom pats him on the shoulder)
I have not abandoned solar trials as it is extremely important to me, but after crashing and burning on a prequel novella about Tom's and Jeff's first canon encounter, I realized that...I actually don't know how to write longform fiction that's not in the genre of fanfiction. So I'm doing a practice novel that's completely different and a rom com and (if you look closely) copy-paste Check, Please! and—
—it does feature Hephaestus. Like he's just in the story. Not as a wizard scholar, but as a artsy magazine editor who is extremely mean. It's just him. AU Jeff terrorizing Terrestrials.
To be deleted, but it's interesting: in writing John Rich and the Big Picture, even though I'm just on the first draft, I've learned SO much about the process of novel writing.
After finishing Novel Effects of The Cast of Binding, I was super excited about writing and wanted to jump headfirst into a "prologue" for Solar Trials, but from Tom's POV. Unfortunately, it was a confusing and demoralizing pursuit. I simply did not know how to write Tom, or establish character, or work on scenes, or even draft/outline. I thought I had learned that through writing Novel Effects, but I did not.
This is because while Novel Effects is a complete story, but it's essentially fanfiction. (I use that descriptor as a categorization of genre, not dismissively.) I wrote it without introducing the character and world—I just assumed that anyone crazy enough to read it would know who Hephaestus was and what a casting wheel could do, for example. So in attempting a short story from Tom's POV, I jumped in, head first, tackling plot, environment, new characters, voice—all things that I did not know how to do (and am, quite frankly, still learning about). After John Rich, I am really excited to attempt the short story prologue again!!
All this to say, I have no forgotten about Jeff and Tom. It's the opposite! I'm teaching myself how to write because I really care about them!!
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 :)"
okay i know i'm working on an entirely different novel right now but it's so that when i write solar trials it's halfway decent. And I can return to this Tumblr and freak everyone out.
hi professor hephaestus I hope you are well…. I have recently discovered old married spirk fics where they teach at the academy and they remind me of you… big fan here (I have read novel effects of the cast of binding 3 times…..) someday there will be a book about you but until then I will live vicariously through spirk… miss you💔💔
😭 i'm literally working on the pitch for my agent rn wtf
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 apprentices sat at the long, oak 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. But this week the Almanac was virtually empty, and laptops, composition notebooks, and Aphran scrolls were nestled between clay mugs on a much, much smaller main mess table. Teddy picked up a scroll and brushed the Almanac's approximation of 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?" asked Hunter. For whatever reason, when Teddy asked a question he didn't feel like he was annoying, but Hunter's questions were made him squint. What? Hunter kicked his boots up on the dining hall table, inches away from Jenny's plate. Teddy's nana would've tossed Hunter out of her 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?"
"Yeah, probably," sighed Teddy. "Cast of Calm." His oblong, bent casting wheel rolled up the scroll in his palm—almost. The paper unevenly 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. They'd been traveling on the ship for months at this point—you'd think Teddy would be used to nodes silently entering rooms, and making him nearly crap his pants. "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."
"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 either 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, and was just doing the best they could.
Crash.
Teddy's head snapped up from putting away his scroll. The carafe had exploded on the deck, orange liquid spilling and rolling toward backpacks and shoes. And then Teddy careened to the left, leg kicking up, reaching out to grab the mess bench to catch himself. Hands shot out out to catch pens and notebooks and laptops as they skidded across the table, and casting wheels erupted around the table like fireworks to keep items from clattering to the deck. Eigan lost his hoofing, spilling his mug and stumbling into Teddy's chest.
"Did we hit something?" shouted Hunter. "Almanac, what the hell was that?!"
"A cosmic dust storm, perhaps," said Eigan, The ship righted itself. "My apologies, Theodore. Cast of Streams."
The Martian prince wasted no time collecting himself and extracting himself off of the human he had stumbled into. A crisp circle of light appeared at Eigan's palm. Teddy's chin sunk into his sweater as he watched the orange juice lift out of his fabric and evaporate into midair.
"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."
Roots pushed at Teddy's feet. He lifted up a sneaker as tendrils pushed his foot out of the pool of sprawling tomato-tasting orange juice, and he watched as the Almanac absorbed the spill. The node stooped down to pick up the broken glass.
"You were decommissioned a century ago, Al," said Teddy. God, he knew the ship meant well, but watching them clean themselves was so creepy. "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, and locked eyes with Teddy.
"Starships have lifespans of centuries, Apprentice Theodore. Millenia, even, depending on a ship's use. Given 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. "M-my apologies, apprentices. The rough starfaring will come and go in waves."
"Almanac, isn't transporting a Martian rector's rite a big deal?" asked Jenny. "Yes, you were decommissioned years ago, but what you're doing now—for us—is honorable!"
"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?"
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.
