Martin Peters is a fictional character in Doggieboy's Apocalyptic Daria.
Background[]
A young man in his late teens, Martin is staying at the Carthage UMC Rescue Center (located in West Virginia, near his family home) with his parents, John Peters and Martha Peters, and working as one of the guards when Daria Morgendorffer and Jane Lane arrive in search of medical treatment after an attack by feral dogs.
When Daria and Martin share a watch together, a raider attack occurs, and they ended up saving each other's lives, but Martin was seriously wounded in the process. Kathy Wilson performed emergency surgery which saved his life.
Before the attack, Martin asked Daria to be his girlfriend, but she turned him down and they became friends instead. Despite her initial refusal, there was a definite romantic spark between the two as well as friendship, which was seen by Jane as well as Martin's parents. It was also evident in a dream Daria has in which she and Martin spend a romantic interlude together.
Tension arises between Martin and Daria when Trent unexpectedly arrives at Carthage, along with a woman he identified as his girlfriend, and her two daughters. By later that same day, however, Daria accepts Trent’s “situation” and makes her own romantic move on Martin. Their relationship grows from that point as the story progresses.
Martin is a well-read young man (his favorite work is The Odyssey), he's a fan of Sick, Sad World and Mystik Spiral, and is adept in the ways of hunting and wilderness survival. He and his family are at Carthage for mutual self-protection and community support, while their home is less than a mile from the church itself.
Martin keeps a personal stash of treats, including various chocolate-style items and Gummi Bears, which he rotates occasionally to ensure the freshness of the products. He has done so faithfully for several years, ever since a severe winter storm caused his family to be snowed in and he went without chocolates for a month. It would be safe to say that Martin Peters is addicted to chocolate. From comments made in Apocalyptic Daria and Apocalyptic Daria: Brave New World, that apparently is a trait common amongst members of the Peters family.
He is also fond of game dishes, including squirrel and dumplings with cornbread.
As Martin and Daria grow together romantically, they support each other during difficult times (Martin supported her when she believed that all of her immediate family were dead, and she supported him after his mother killed his father and Glen Bates during a shooting spree.) They also share a snarky sense of humor.
Both are punished by the church elders over a fight he and Daria had with three bullies. It is later revealed that they were really punished over the belief that they had sexual relations inside the church (a lie started by Odell Jones). After their punishments are overturned by the assembled church congregation, they spend their private time alone in his garage.
It was during one such time that they learn that Helen Morgendorffer is alive and have to explain themselves to her when she catches them, alone and partially dressed. Martin later asked Helen to be his guardian; she accepted, but warned him that he was subject to her rules in much the same manner that Daria was.
It was revealed that Martin was just several weeks away from graduation and had offers to attend college at institutions in both Pittsburgh and St. Louis - cities that were destroyed on Black Saturday.
Martin has a reputation of playing things safely and not taking unnecessary chances. Despite this personality trait, he has suffered several injuries, some serious, since meeting Daria. He has been shot, twisted his ankle in a fall off of a cliff (which is later broken by one bully during the fight, lost his left thumbnail, smashed his left hand, has his head grazed by a bullet and was cut in several places by a rogue Marine named Kerry Thompson.
Physical Description[]
Martin is 6-feet-2-inches tall and weighs around 210 pounds. He has wavy, dark brown hair and is clean-shaven. He is physically fit, but that comes more from his hobbies of hiking and hunting than from any exercise regimen.
Alternate versions of Martin Peters[]
'Legion of Lawndale Heroes'[]
Another version of Martin Peters appears in the Legion of Lawndale Heroes serial fic, where he is a Cadet First Class and Cadet Commander Of Corps (the highest position possible for a cadet to achieve) at the United States Academy of Extranormal Studies in Evansville, Indiana. He was the first cadet to meet the Legionnaires, and spent time with them during their visit at the Academy.
As with all cadets at the Academy, Cadet Peters possesses metahuman abilities. Those are:
- The ability to open portals into the 'space' between parallel/alternate realities and dimensions known as 'The Bleed', as well as the ability to traverse it without harm into other worlds. A side-effect of this ability allows him to percieve the use of powers by other time- and dimension travelers, and to be invulnerable to the use and effects of any abilities that involve dimensional, continuun, temporal or reality control or manipulation (unless he chooses to be affected). Finally, should he be affected by the use of said powers with levels far greater than his own, he will always be aware of how the manipulation was done (but not by whom) and how the new reality is different from the old one.)
- The ability to 'envision' (his term) actual persons, places and events from other realities in the form of films and television shows (under the theory that actual persons in one reality are fictional characters of varying popularity and character in others). He can also both view those persons/places/events through any form of visual medium (TV, computer, etc.), and record them for later viewing. (Martin can view those events himself without need for a medium, if he so chooses.)
- The ability to actually retrieve items from other dimensions for his own personal use; he is limited in this ability to items that he can personally lift with his own strength. However, if somehow linked to other metahumans who have greater strength than he does (or powers that simulate strength, such as telekinesis), he may then bring even larger items through.
- The ability to act as a 'time-space beacon', so as to accurately navigate 'The Bleed' by himself or for others. Due to the nature of this power, Cadet Peters will ALWAYS have the innate ability to return home to his original reality, as well as open portals to send individuals back to their own.
- The ability to actively and forcibly expel beings and objects from other realities, dimensions and locations in time from the reality he currently exists in. He can choose to return them to their original place of existence or simply expel them into The Bleed, where they will remain outside of time and space until someone else retrieves them or they can manage to exit The Bleed on their own.
Cadet Peters has been aware of Daria and her friends for some time. He has viewed a great many alternate realities, including all of those cataloged in the Daria Multiverse - and particularly since 'envisioning' the events that took place in the alternate reality designated as 'Daria-200'. He developed a serious crush upon her, one that seemed to be slightly reciprocated by Daria herself (and noticed by several of the other Legionnaires). In Legion of Lawndale Heroes 12.7, it appeared that the initial attraction from Daria towards Martin had faded (as he believes that she has left the Academy for good without even saying goodbye), but in fact, she and the other Legionnaires only left for an outing with several members of The Alliance.
Cadet Peters also has a 'special item', given to him by a person he refers to as 'the young woman from the future', which he had been told to give to the Legionnaires 'in the hour of their greatest need'. Therefore, it is certain that Martin and Daria will meet again.
'Tales Of The Ringbearers'[]
A third version of Martin Peters exists as one of the Ringbearers who served during the zombie outbreak on the Earth known as Daria-159. He is 23 years old when the events depicted in Things Fall Apart occurs and is the oldest of the three Martin Peters seen in the Daria Multiverse thus far.
During the outbreak, he was stationed at Spitsbergen, an island territory of Norway. While he only destroyed twelve zombies during the entire outbreak, he used his ring to feed the locals after food shipments from the mainland stopped. He was also in a brief romantic relationship with a Russian woman named Tatyana Petrova while there.
This Martin Peters is also something of a prankster, having angered the Renee Andrews of Daria-413, who is also a Ringbearer, when he accidentally transmuted her clothing into water (he was trying to change her clothing into silk, but she distracted him with lightning flashes), effectively stripping her nude.
'Worldburner'[]
A female version of Martin Peters exists in the Brother Grimace Worldburner story This is my BOOMSTICK!. Her name is Martina Peters and she is one of the survivors from Carthage, West Virginia who suffered the double whammy of Black Saturday and Judith.
'Other'[]
A second Martina Peters exists in the Sockpuppy story The Sad Times of Martina Peters, currently in progress on the SFMB. In this story, Martina finds herself at the mercy of Odell Jones, who found a way to get her alone and away from the rescue center at Carthage, without anyone else knowing what he did.