The Secret Life of Hubert Oswell
A bit of Meta for Tales of Graces Fandom...
"Do they have real names?" Pascal asked as she canted her head at the starfish shaped action figures on the shelf in Hubert's bedroom. She had already made the mistake of calling them statues.
He kept a close eye on her hands. The set was mint and he didn't want anyone—even her—leaving marks or even a smudge on them. He really needed to invest in a display case, especially now since she would be visiting more often. "What do you mean real names?"
"Pink, Black, Red, Blue, Purple, White, and Green," she said, pointing at each of the carefully arranged action figures. "Those aren't real names."
"Those are their code names," he said, shaking his head and wondering if this was a terrible idea to introduce her to his fandom. Scratch fandom. He meant hobby. Hobby sounded less childish, so he would call it that. Yes. "Their names are Estelle, Yuri, Rita, Judith, Raven, Flynn, and Karol."
"And their group is called Brave Vesperia? What the heck does that mean?"
"It's the brightest star in the sky," he said, regretting this more by the second. "But not all of them are members. It's complicated." Maybe someday he'd give her the books to read, but not now. Now, he was wondering if she was going to walk out of here laughing her head off at him for his obsession with the Sun Screen Rangers.
"Yeah, I guess," she said with a shrug, reaching a finger up to touch the pink one. "And some are girls? I mean, how do you tell which are girls?"
He cringed as she did that. "Please, don't touch." A sigh, and he indulged the question. "Pink, Blue, and Red are female."
"But Karol isn't? That's totally a girl's name."
"True, though Pascal could be a boy's name."
"It could," she said with a shrug. "But it's not. I have girl parts, y'know."
"Yes, I know." Somehow, talking about that was less embarrassing than talking about fandom with her. Not fandom. His hobby. He had to remember to call it that.
She tucked her arms behind her back and shifted her weight from foot to foot. "You can check 'em out if you want."
"I do not need to do that!"
She laughed. "Aww…you're no fun." Looking back at the collection, she stuck out her tongue. "Boo."
"What is your problem now?"
"Where's Yellow? And Orange? I mean, how can you not have an orange or a yellow?"
"Orange is Purple's secret identity and his action figure hasn't been announced yet," he said, giving her a side-ways glance. "There is a Yellow Sun Screen Ranger, but she was added later in a different release. The fans of the original series believe she has no purpose and her backstory is contrived. I did not purchase her because I didn't like how they retconned her into the universe."
If she was confused or amused, he couldn't tell, but she gave him a smile. "So you really like these things, huh? I mean, I read the first few stories once but I never really got into it."
"Did you get to the part with the Water Breakers?"
"Oh, you mean with Sheldon?"
"Well, technically he is not part of the Water Breakers. He's just a crazy Shellion who is a minion of Conchaider."
"He's not crazy. His mother had him tested!"
He actually gave a tiny smile at that. Perhaps this wasn't an exercise in futility after all. "Yes, that is one of the running jokes of the series. But he is indeed crazy."
"Yeah, well, I kinda stopped reading after he showed up in like fourth issue because I got bored."
She got bored? He ignored the blasphemous comment and his eyes widened as he realized he had left his notebook on the desk-the desk right below the very shelf she was looking at. Heaven help him if she saw what that contained. "Perhaps you should give it another try. I honestly feel the story picked up after the escape from the Zaphias ship."
"Yeah," she said, grinning at him. "I will. Cuz if you like this stuff it must be kinda cool."
His face flushed. Did she just say it was kind of cool? Well, then, he was indeed the luckiest guy in the world. A woman who might just appreciate his obsession? He was certain none of those existed.
Before he could object, she reached for the notebook on the desk. "What's this?"
"Nothing. Just some nonsense I was sketching." He said quickly—way too quickly.
"Oh, you draw?" she asked, turning a few pages. "Umm…there aren't any drawings in here. It's just a lot of writing."
"Very well. Just give it back." He was certain his face was on fire.
"No," she said, turning to hold it out of his reach. "I wanna see what you were writing."
"Please, don't," he whined as he resigned himself to the fact that this romance would definitely be ending in the next few moments. What woman would want to be with a grown man who writes inane stories about someone else's fictional characters? And oh for the love of cryas, he hoped she did not find pages twenty-eight through thirty-four…
"Aww…it's a love story," she said, smiling at him. "Ranger White and Ranger Blue! Aww...they're gonna adopt this little boy."
Wiping the sweat from his palms onto his slacks, he tried to grab the notebook from her again. "Oh, that's very old. Please, just don't read any more."
"The date at the top says two weeks ago," she said, puzzled. "And I think it's cute so I wanna read more!"
Damn his perfectionism and his need to date everything. Wanting just to crawl under the bed, he flopped down to sit on it as she parked herself in his desk chair, entranced in the story. Or, at least she was pretending to be.
Long, agonizing moments passed as she read, and lo, she did find page twenty-eight. "Oh my GOSH. Ranger Black and Ranger Pink are totally naked and are gonna do it on a beach!? You wrote porn, Hu?"
"It's not porn. It's erotica." He corrected, pulling his pillow over his face. It would be best to just smother himself now and get it over with before she read any further and found the part where Blue performed a certain act on White. A certain act involving her mouth on parts of him that Hubert could only write as "starhood" because the other words for it made him blush too much.
"No, it's porn," she laughed. "It's kinda hot. I like it. But, do they like even have y'know parts? Cuz aren't they starfish?"
"Have you considered that they just look like starfish? Perhaps they are really people."
She shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe you just want them to be real people. Not that there's anything wrong with that or your writing. You should totally write more. I wanna see Ranger Purple and Ranger Black kiss."
He sat up and shook his head, still shocked that this conversation was even happening. "They're both male, and definitely not attracted to each other."
"Yeah? So? Who cares! Write it for me, please?!"
"But—"
She interrupted him with one of those brilliant, goofy smiles. "If they can become human and have sex on the beach, then two guys can kiss! It doesn't need to make sense! Oh, and you should make up a yellow one. I could be the yellow one and you can be the kid Blue and White adopt and I could be your new best friend!"
"Ugh, that sounds so forced and fake." Well, she figured out his self-insert. Not that it was too difficult to do so, but that just upped the embarrassment factor by about a hundred degrees.
"Well, how about you write us as us? I mean, you could write a story about us going to Asbel's wedding or getting stranded on a desert island or just talking about stuff like your dads or y'know like how people in the Enclave would feel if we had kids. Y'know…anything about us."
"Writing about us feels wrong," he said with finality. "It's not really fiction, it would be conjecture and I don't feel comfortable with plotting our destinies like that."
"I guess you're right," she said, sitting on the bed next to him. "But, if you write us in the Sun Screen Rangers stories, I'll draw you pictures to go along with them! Even for the bwah-ah-ahh scenes."
"Bwah-ah-ahh?" He asked. His face was so warm that steam was nearly coming from his ears.
"The sex, silly."
"You'd draw that?"
"Sure, why not? You write it."
"I can't believe you'd draw it."
"It's just people kissing and stuff. I won't draw the naughty bits. I mean, unless you model for me or something."
"Absolutely not!"
She laughed. "Trust me. I won't make it gross."
"Very well," he sighed. This was certainly an interesting turn of events. Not only was she interested in his fandom—yes, he'd stick with that word—she wanted to participate in it. Damn, if she wasn't the perfect woman. Perhaps he'd suggest they attend the Sun Screen Rangers convention next year. She would make a lovely Siren Queen, in the proper costume, of course.
"So what do we call this anyway?"
"Call what?"
"Your writing? I mean, there's got to be a name for the genre, right?"
There were terms he'd heard used for it, some quite offensive and others just derogatory. And while "derivative works of a self-indulgent and even mentally masturbatory nature" came to mind, he didn't want to say that to her. Giving a small smile as he pressed his glasses up his nose, he felt a bit of hope for this little endeavor. "I believe it is commonly called fanfiction."
No characters were hurt in the writing of this meta fic.
Though, Hubert is probably hiding under his bed right about now.
Shout outs to Pengie, Joh, and Kirvee, for allowing me to reference their stories in this one.