Creator's Notes: Peter

[Kris@WLP]

Well, the email monster ate this week's update, and Ben's at a con, so I'm going to stall for time by making a stab at creator notes for the comic.

PETER

Although Sarah is far and away the most visible cast member, Peter's the one who will get the most actual screen time. He's the focus of all the conflict and action in the comic, which is why the comic is named after him.

In most anime, manga and comics in which there is a single male who attracts multiple females, the male has something special going for him. In Masaki Kajishima's works, the male possesses incredible cosmic powers; in Ranma 1/2, the male is a martial arts prodigy; in Urusei Yatsura, Ataru is the world's unluckiest man. Peter is none of these things- I wanted a main male lead whose prospective "harem" would not have a single obvious reason to desire him. There's also the fact that I wanted a small, relatively weak male to contrast with Sarah.

Peter is, put bluntly, a schlub. Everything about him that makes him exceptional in any way whatever is directly or indirectly traceable to the fact that he's a werewolf. He's a C average student, a face in the crowd, nothing the average human or werewolf would see as a particular object of desire. He's not even particularly unlucky; in fact, he's the direct architect of most, if not all, of his own misfortune.

Peter is aware of his own ordinariness. In fact, he's hyperaware of it, and exaggerates it beyond all proportion. As a general rule, werewolves are exceptional in both forms, great achievers in the human world and impressive physical specimens as werewolves. Peter is neither- a fact which his father, Walt, has drilled into his head for over a decade. Only in one aspect of his body is Peter even up to the werewolf standard- substantially, but not exceptionally, beyond it- and that aspect has brought him more embarrassment and tension than comfort.

Peter's jacket is only one part of his overcompensation. When among werewolves, except for his mother, he's very quiet, shy and evasive. In fact, he's already in effect the pack omega, the one everyone else in the pack picks on. Outside this werewolf society, though, his longing for acceptance and affection manifests itself in a sort of hyperconfidence- the braggadocio of the jock, eager to show off at any and every opportunity in anything he's good at.

Peter much prefers the company of humans to werewolves for this reason- humans give him someone to feel superior to, for the most part. Unfortunately, he doesn't find acceptance among humans. To them, for the most part, he's the weird loner outcast. His skills as an athlete are vastly outweighed in teen culture by the ways he fails to conform- the fur jacket in summertime is a biggie there. He's not persecuted- he just doesn't fit in.

Being an outcast is, more or less, how he got to know Sarah. Sarah regarded the younger Peter, incredibly eager to please, the showoff, the dimwitted goofball as adorable in a puppy-dog sort of way. For his part Peter never questioned Sarah's attraction to him- he was too grateful to merely have someone who, he thought, cared for him strictly for who he was, without comparison to anything else.

As a pack omega, as a person with extreme low self-esteem, Peter tends to take the path of least resistance to all things. He has very few ambitions, mostly limited to finding means of gaining respect and affection from others. To his mind athletics is his one hope, which is the sole reason he's attending college in the fall. It takes something extremely distasteful for Peter to take a stand- for example, the affections of elderly senile female werewolves- and in most cases, like any pack omega, he will back down or run away rather than fight.

Peter does a LOT of running.

A portion of Peter comes directly from my own high school experience. However, all through school I was praised as an exceptionally talented student, someone with actual potential, and I had the support of my parents, insofar as they were able to provide it. Peter has never had this support, and his self-image is worse than mine ever was.

The comic Peter is the Wolf is about a series of events which will define the entire lives of the four main cast members- Peter, Sarah, Jean and "Butch". Of the four, Peter has the most room to grow, and I hope that, in the course of the story, he will do the most growing. As we start the story, Peter's entire life has been essentially shredded, his minimal comfort zone has been removed, he's been threatened with death, and he's pissed off the one person whose unconditional love and trust he thought he had. Whatever else happens, he won't be able to just cruise through life avoiding conflict anymore; conflict will come to him.

[ProphetTenebrae]

Interesting stuff, will you be putting up other notes for the other characters at all? I'll be interested to see what Butch and Sarah get.

[Kris@WLP]

I've asked Ben to write in his thoughts on Peter here.

Notes on other characters will likely come along when an update is late or MIA, if we feel like it.

[bar1scorpio]

Well, visually, Peter started off even more schlubby.. but one thing that kept was the jacket. It was a visual cue for his lack of size.. it also took on the look of an animal with their hackles raised. As in responding to a threat of some sort.

I've mentioned part of Peter & Sarah's problems was their typically teen-centric lack of forsight. Led them to have sex without protection. The story itself also seems a nice platform for me and Kris to actually talk about sex itself, which is rare for the other WLP stories. It really is at it's core about the hero's having to come to terms with the results of his own irresponsibility or hubris. As well as a sopabox to give some personal thoughts about people, relationships & sex. To my own irritation, sex ed for jr high and highschoolers seems to always be more along the lines of "Human Plumbing 101" than "Human Relationships 101".

Peter does have alot of growing up to do, and learning about the expanse of relationships in particular.

[K-MacK]

[Wizard_of_odd]

Suddenly , I find myself relating to Peter a whole lot more now...

although I think that I may be living a little too close to the set written description of Peter.

This story is going to be rather good , you can quote me on this.

[Queen of Night]

I really can relate to Peter in many ways, so could a lot of my friends.