Peterella…

… or, “Peter who?”

Maybe it says something about how far we’ve come in Twilight fan fiction that an increasingly popular pairing is Peter and Bella. Tired of the plethora of You-name-it-wards, yet loyal to canon pairings and uncomfortable seeing Bella with Jasper, Emmett, or (shudder) Carlisle? But inside, you still want Bella to find a guy who’s strong, loyal, and sexy as hell? Ladies, meet Peter.

“Huh?”

I hear you all out there, puzzling till your puzzlers are sore. “Acky, who the hell is Peter?” Listen up, lovely readers. Here’s your canon refresher in ten seconds: Peter served with Jasper in Maria’s army, before falling in love with Charlotte, a newborn slated for destruction. They escaped together and later returned for Jasper, convincing him to join them as nomads in the more peaceful North. Peter and Charlotte returned in Breaking Dawn to line up alongside the other 57,000 vampires who showed up to support the Cullens against the Volturi. Whew.

In canon, Peter was such an incidental character that he can’t even really be called a secondary, as the rest of the Cullens and the La Push crowd are. For this reason, Peter can be used as a “blank slate,” especially in all-human stories, although several AU stories also make terrific use of him. This, in my opinion, is his biggest appeal for a writer; Peter is like a ball of clay, one you can shape into an “almost original” character, but without the negative baggage an original character might carry for some readers. Better still, he comes without preconceived notions, as some of the other secondary characters might.

And while many readers profess to be fans of strictly canon pairings, I’ve found that the Peter/Bella pairing is easier for them to accept, since they don’t have to deal with the absence of another canon couple, in addition to accepting whatever might have happened to Edward.

For example, I wrote an all-human Peter/Bella story line for part of my Twilight 25 last fall. Initially, I had a rather dark story in mind for the prompt called “Retribution,” in which a bitter, broken Bella, having remained a virgin at Edward’s insistence, is dumped by him when he goes off to college. Her self-confidence and self-esteem plummet, until Bella meets Peter at party and they share an intense, mutual attraction. Bella decides to vent her anger at Edward by divesting herself of her virginity with the help of Peter, who initially knows nothing of her plan or her lack of experience.

Because I couldn’t see either Jasper or Emmett agreeing to such a plan, I decided to use Peter, characterizing him as a slightly older, self-aware ”old soul” who had dropped out of college to return to Forks and work on his writing.

And then an interesting thing happened: I let Peter lead, and the story became less dark, more hopeful, and 180 degrees from where I started. With Peter, I gave Bella a guy who had enough life experience to be able to help her put her heartbreak into perspective, confront her anger and her grief, and finally, discover her “mojo.” Their relationship continued to evolve across other prompts.

SweetDulcinea is another writer who’s spent quite a bit of time with a human Peter in her Peterella story “Toxic,” in which Peter is the sexy guy in Bella’s past with whom she has some very incendiary sexual chemistry. Her Peter and Bella have some work to do, however, as they try to grow their relationship into something deeper and connect on more levels than just a physical one.

Sweet Dulci on writing Peter: “… I wanted to create a pairing where the readers needed to be convinced to want Peter and Bella together. Edward/Bella is natural for us, so even when Edward is an ass and Bella is an annoying little twit, we still cheer them on. In this case, it was my job as the author to create characterizations and a story that changed readers’ minds – that made them want to try a pairing that was different (and new to most of them).”

For a straight-up romantic Peter and Bella, Sweet Dulci also has a one shot called “The Prince of Crimson Tides.” That Peter is completely swoon-worthy, and well … let’s just say he offers his own “chivalrous gesture” during one particularly intimate scene. You will smile through this entire story.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that Dulci and I both get our Peter inspiration from this guy, riiiiight here:

ElleCC sent us that photo to let us know what visual she and LaViePastiche used when they did some work with Peter characterizations. The photo went nearly viral across the fandom and is, in part, responsible for some of the surge in interest in Peter stories.

NCChris writes a Peterella story called “Gateway to the Rockies,” in which both Peter and Bella have painful pasts, but must learn to trust and rely on each other if they are ever to heal enough to be good together. Peter wants so much to be the man he believes Bella needs, and despite Bella’s misguided attempts to do what she thinks is best for him, he doesn’t give up on her or the relationship. I like the way Chris has used the other Cullens, and Edward is still a presence in the story, too.

NCChris, on why she writes Peter: “Well, I am a hardcore Jasper fan, so I spend a lot of my time thinking about who Jasper is, especially pre-Twilight. Peter is such an important part of Jasper’s history. I grew to love my ideas of who he might have been and through that, came to be interested in him as a main character as well as a supporting one.”

Interestingly, both Dulci and Chris mentioned the “blank slate” aspect of Peter’s appeal to them, as writers. (And they were completely unprompted by me, I swear!)

As I mentioned earlier, Peterella is featured in some AU stories as well, and for this part of the trend, I went to IdreamofEddy, or, as I call her, “The Source of all Things Peter.” Relatively early on, IdreamofEddy wrote a fascinating characterization of Peter in her epic Jasper/Bella story, “Colliding Meteors.” When she was preparing to write a Bella story using an original character, she decided to use Peter instead, based on her readers’ reactions to him in CM. And now we have “The Orbiting Meteor,” her current story in which Bella has survived heartache and grief several times over, landed on her feet as a college student in Phoenix, and is doing just fine, thankyouverymuch … until one night, while working at her waitress job, she meets a vampire who sweeps her off of those aching feet. This Peter is a complex character — easily one of the most layered ones I’ve read in Twific — and his devotion to Bella is rooted in mystery and a bit of the supernatural. To Bella, Peter is devastatingly sexy and romantic, intelligent, and most important to her, he is honest with her about what he is and exactly what she means to him. But this Peter is not without flaws, and his complicated and mysterious past is an issue with which the two must deal if their relationship is to really succeed.

IdreamofEddy relied on as much Twilight canon as possible to develop Peter. Based on his history with Jasper and his actions in Breaking Dawn, she describes him as “ … intelligent, trustworthy, civilized, and nonjudgmental. [His actions] tell me that he cared for those close to him and that he wanted to co-exist with his kind peacefully. All of this had great bearing on my characterization of Peter in both stories, while at the same time the lack of traits given to him in canon gave me something to work with and build on.”

Are you seeing the pattern here, readers? While we can infer some qualities for Peter from the series, the bottom line is that he is so vaguely drawn that we still can build him into the kind of partner that Bella needs. While we will always love our Byronic hero Edward, there is an increasing trend in Twific to portray him as an ass, and maybe that’s getting old for you. And while we love our Jaspers and our Emmetts, those characters can be problematic, because parts of their canon characterizations seem almost set in stone: Jasper is always intuitive and scarred in some way; Emmett is always fun-loving and immensely strong.

But Peter … Peter can be this:

I laughed under my breath and gave her the biggest grin I could manage before I locked my eyes with hers. I locked the hand I was holding and the arm attached to it down at her side and moved closer to her.

“A man had given all other bliss, and all his worldly worth for this, to waste his whole heart in one kiss upon her perfect lips.”

I watched her face and I watched her frozen form melt. Gone was the anger and embarrassment that had been building up. Those eyes that could burn a hole right through a normal human man softened, and now she was blushing again out of nervousness and attraction. Her vital heart had picked up again in pace, it’s constant thrumming singing to my own lifeless heart. She smiled and looked away shyly, biting that fat lip.

“Tennyson.” She said quietly. – “The Orbiting Meteor”

Or this:

“And, Bella?” I gesture between her and me. “We’ll do this again, when the time is right. And when I have you in my bed, you’ll be staying there for a while. There will be no getting up and rushing off after the next time we make love. That’s a guarantee. And there many not be many of those in a relationship, but you’ve got that one from me.” — Twilight 25: Jumping into the Deep End (Awkward)

Or even this:

He stopped me and rested his hand on my neck. “Hey, can you look at me for a minute?” I did as he asked. “I’m thrilled about this idea, but I don’t want you to feel pressured either. I don’t know where you and I are going, but since you told me that you could possibly be moving here, I’ve wanted it so bad. It’s selfish, but I can’t help that.” I smiled at his confession, feeling butterflies dance in my stomach. “I want you to know that this week isn’t just about some fling for me. I’ve always cared about you, and I would never use you. – The Prince of Crimson Tides

I read reviews for Peterella stories (even those written by others, because I’m just weird like that) and I see a common thread running through many of them: “I never thought I’d read Bella with anyone else but Edward, but I love Peter;” “I’m strictly an Edward/Bella girl, but I LOVE this;” “Who is this Peter, and where did he come from?”

And the best of all: “More Peterella, please!”