Apropos of Nothing
Typically, on this section of the site, I am collecting my fanfictions for certain fandoms AND whatever other junk related to said fandom that I've generated. Elfquest is one of those series that, to me, is so perfect that I've never had the urge to write fanfiction about it. Maybe the perfect idea will hit me like a brick someday, but until that day, I just read and reread.
My last full reread saw me taking screencaps of moments I like, so now I'm going to make a page where I share those screencaps, sorted into semantic categories that make sense to me. Hooray!
As in all of my screencap pages, every image comes with hovertext that has basic description and sometimes more information.
But real quick... What's Elfquest?
Elfquest was and is a sprawling, ambitious fantasy/sci-fi comic that is set on the World of Two Moons, a place much like Earth but not Earth. Without spoilers (at least, withough spoiling more than the first handful of chapters), protagonist Cutter is the chief of a tribe of woods-dwelling elves called the Wolfriders. Once driven from their home when a feud with local, neolithic humans culminates in the destruction of the forst by fire, Cutter and his tribe embark on a quest to find a new home and more elves like them.
That quick introduction does not touch the real heart of the story, which is the fully-realied nature of the elves in Elfquest as a human-like species that is absolutely not human. The elves are not written as humans with ears, they are written as other, fantastically other. Their norms, values, beliefs, and orgins are all utterly different from our own. Though it took some time, Elfquest eventually became the biggest, boldest, best example I can think of of a fiction that stands on the side of love. These elves love broadly and boldly, with mixed, queer, polyamorous famlies, and quests to protect them unto the ends of the earth.
Uh... that was a pretty good low-spoilers introduction, but it goes without saying though that the rest of this page is full of spoilers. It's screencaps of moments from the whole original run.
The good thing is, you don't have to be worries about spoilers at all! THE WHOLE STORY IS FREE. Many years ago, author/artist time Wendy and Richard Pini chose to make 90% of the comic, excluding only new releases, free to all readers. If you follow the link to the website above, you can jsut read the whole thing, totally free, no advertisements, no downloads. Seriously.
Moments That Changed Me
Nightfall rescues Redlance
This moment shakes me every time. Gentle, tree-tending Redlance, who hates violence, is forced to turn nonetheless to violence to protect the tribe's children from an attack. His huntress partner, Nightfall, finds him locked inside himself after the horrific incident. She has to use the elves' power of sending, seaking inside of the mind, to pull him back from inside himself. She tells him that she is the protector, he is the nurturer, and that is who they both shall be and should be; he woll never have to turn to violence again. The Pinis will tell you this move was made in purposeful defiance to oppressive gender roles, but it's so well done that there's no sense at all its forced. It's just two people becoming who they are, with each other.
Leetah Faces Death
A post-quest scene drawn by a guest artist. Here, young healer Leetah, driven by the need to never lose another patient to death again, choses to face death herself. The art gave me shivers the first time I read it; sometimes, amateur art depicts a moment of terror or uncertainty in a way a polished professional couldn't do the same way. I think about this moment often. Though it was a flashback, and likely thought up after most of the quest, if you take it as canon it's actually more powerful tha tLeetah just never mentions this accomplishment.
The Small Truth
Elfquest's key concept of the 'small truth' of day-to-day life, of living honestly but small, within the vast awareness of the 'great truth', knowledge of the totality, has proven equally formative and soothing for me. Some quest for great, cosmic truth; some live within it in lesser but resonant ways. While ultimate reality is the truth, Nightfall posits, a single life is not therefore an illusion. It is a smaller truth that fits neatly within and goes not contradict the geater one.
Cutter Kicks Rayek's Ass
Hell yeah.
The post-quest issue in which Cutter just fucking kick's Rayek's ass for twenty pages (with a bit of vice-versa) is one of my favorites out of the entire run. It's just a work of art. I didn't take a lot of screencaps of it, actually, because the art is so good; the gorgeously imaginative violence flows from panel to panel like a river. It's hard to get one insolated image, but here's one nice one of Cutter just handing it to Rayek. This whole scene is just so much more brutal than the rest of the run and not for no reason. It's an actually impressive balance of just going wild with the art and blocking and being so deliberate with the writing and character motivations.
The Polycule
...You have to imagine that being said in the same cadence of 'the ship'. This is 'the ship' for me, it just happens to involve five people.
Leetah with Nightfall and/or Redlance
Huntress Nightfall was chief Cutter's first lover; after Cutter and Leetah become lifemates, Elfquest does the coolest thing it could possibly do in having Nightfall and Leetah just fall deeply into lady love with each other. Nearly from meeting each other, Leetah and Nightfall are constantly in each other's arms as friends and as more. Cutter never exactly stopped being in a relationship with Nightfall, and being partnered himself actually just strengthens his realtionship with the similarily partnered Nightfall and Redlance; and, frankly, if Cutter's going to do it, Leetah sure as hell feels she can do it too.
Again, without drawing to attention to it, Elfquest does what few other comics dare and treats their female characters as equal to the male characters. They thought about the relationship that Leetah and Nightfall would have and include it seriously. These women rule.
Honestly, the boldness with which Elfquest depicts this double-couple relationship is just staggering. Yes, these two married couples are also in a committed four-person relationship in a remarkably stable square. And?
Cutter and Skywise
Cutter and Skywise's relationship really means something to me. Skywise prefers women and the story make that clear, but his deep connection to his 'brother in all but blood' is the stable foundation of his life, as we learn whenever he loses sight of him for too long. Cutter's love for his lifemate Leetah and his other lifemate Skywise are both so strong that whenever his obligations are in conflict, it's a crisis... but it hardly ever is. They all love each other and neither Leetah nor Skywise have any interest in keeping Cutter for themselves. The story makes it clear that they are all best together and there is no competition. Just love.
Nightfall and Redlance
There's plenty of these two in the other sections, so, enjoy some miscellanea. Their relationship was always so special for me; so in love with each other, choosing to love each other in a setting with perfect soulmates and knowing they aren't each other's, and expanding the boundaries of that love beyond each other and into other partnerships while remaining devoted to each other. It honestly makes me choke up. They love each other SO MUCH and the freedom and polyamory is part of that love. Sweet gentle Redlance and his murderwife Nightfall.
Yes, I put the pages of Nightfall rescuing Redlance here again. This is the section about their relationship.
More of This
...for permutations of the pairing I don't have a full separate section about, ha ha.
Skywise: Professional Third
All (Or Almost All) Together
While I refer to this whole set as 'the polycule', and it is, there is way more thought put into the individual relationships here than 'they're just all together'. Notably there is no sexual or romantic relationship between Skywise and Nightfall or Skywise and Redlance. There is no animosity either—they're friends, tribemates, brothers-in-arms. I honestly like the ship better for it, that not all relationships involved are equally intense and there is a strong sense of backstory and thorough consideration of all characters.
Winnowill's Deal
Oh, Winnie. You dumbass.
When I was young, Winnowill was my favorite character bar none. She is such a well-written and intriguing villain, I don't blame myself. I still just grin through her deft manipulation, vicious self-deception, sheer combined canniness and stupidity... until she gets on about eugenics again. As an adult, being fully concious of how much of her deal is her obsession with blood purity standing in for a genuine self-confidence she lacks just... spoils the broth a little.
I'm not saying I now think she wasn't written well. She was. She's still a fantastic character. I suppose I take comfort in the fact that I am not old enough that she could not long er get me, despite how beautiful and how clever she is. Her racism is just too revolting.
The Pinis wrote a powerful and challenging story in Winnowill as a villain, a healer driven mad by a static closed society in which no healer is needed, and Blue Mountain, a society that had found immortality and perfect peace but totally lost joy and variety. when you add in Winnowill's pointed racism and obsession with blood purity, you get a message that boldly claims that the true way forward is to let the golden past go, to break boundaries of ethnicity and history, and to join together in a new culture. The message is not subtle, it's just so counter-culture that it takes some time for how radical this message is to sink in.
