My Top Ten Alternaverse Characters

These are a few of my favorite Sues... Tee hee. The EQ Alternaverse takes up so much of my ElfQuest time - hey, what are you going to do between publications - that I decided it was high time to post my rogue's gallery of favorite original characters. 

SWIFT
Well, this is an easy one. The original Alternaverse vixen has been my main alter-ego ever since 2001. Had things gone a bit differently, she might have ended up as a boy (see the Secret Origins of Swift), and the EQ Alternaverse might have died before it even began. But Swift latched onto my brain with a death grip, and the rest is history. Swift spends her days trying to undo all of Cutter's momentuous decisions, a hard thing to do sometimes, because as much as she hates to admit it, she thinks just like him. Cutter's got nothing on her for chief of changes. She's a Wolfrider without wolf-blood, a chief of a tribe now just as home in canoes as on wolfback. She lost half of the older generation because of her newfangled ideas, and when the tribe split up, it was Redlance who took over the more Way-centric tribe. But Swift does see any conflict between being a Wolfrider and being a member of the new Iron Age order at the Great Holt. And with no time-warp in effect, she intends to stay rooted to the World of Two Moons for a long time to come.
 
CHANI
Look, Mommy, it's a High One Sue! Yes, I dote terribly on my goddess Chani, and endow her with way too many adjectives sometimes. She's diva and she doesn't deny it. Though I must confess I was a little dubious at first when Sun Girl suggested we make Timmain's unnamed daughter into Haken's lifemate. But one awesome name later - yeah, it's stolen from Dune. There is a very compelling and unspeakably nerdy reason behind it - we were in business.  She rebelled against her mother's new Way, ran off to marry the dark-haired villain, and ended up giving birth to the Evil Seed. She has all the grace of a High One and none of a High One's Jedi nonchalance - her long sleep in wrapstuff means she's younger than most of the Sun Folk. Now ruling the roost as mother goddess at Oasis, Chani spends her days mothering every elf-child rotten, hunting for the tribe, and struggling to get the knack of weaving useable cloth. If you see a grovelling shadow chasing her everywhere, it's probably Coppersky, who has fallen in love with her elegant bitchiness towards those who cross her.
 
CHEIPAR
Purists might argue that since Cheipar did make a one-panel appearance in canon, he doesn't count as a true Alternaverse character. But since his appearance was limited to his death scene as an infant, I feel fairly justified putting him here. Besides, he's just that hot. Cheipar might have grown up into a foul-mouthed brat like Sust, if it hadn't been for the fortuitous appearance of Stepdaddy Aurek when Cheipar was two. Between Aurek, Uncle Teir, and Papa Pike, Cheipar's terrible twos mellowed into a remarkably gentle childhood. Now he's a Miyazaki-influenced little cutie, quieter than Strongbow, deadlier with his bow than any elf since old Trueflight, with a quiet grace and intensity that's almost a bit too... feline for most Wolfriders. His uncle Teir taught him all about animal-magic and he's always seen in the company of several animal-friends. And one ver-ry satisfied lifemate.
 
 

WEATHERBIRD
Sun Girl's Weatherbird landed a spot in the Alternaverse from the start, and she soon became one of my favorite characters - and one of the hardest to write dialogue for. Weatherbird's natural quirkiness - or insanity, depending on which elf you ask - makes her a real enigma in the Alternaverse. She has enough magic in her to go head-to-head with both High Ones, but her head is always so high in the clouds that she seldom puts the full weight of her powers to use. She carries on casual conversations with elfin spirits, but her own tribemates can never quite figure out what she's talking about. It was only natural she'd end up with her agemate Cheipar, quite the odd fish himself. Together the two of them live quite comfortably in their own little world. Contrary to popular belief, they know exactly what others think of them. They just don't care. Weatherbird is seldom seen without her "bodyguard" - mostly because she keeps getting herself in trouble whenever Cheipar isn't around to rein her in.
 

GRAYLING
One of my original resolutions for the Alternaverse was that everything would be exactly as it was in ElfQuest canon up to the point when Joyleaf challenges Bearclaw after his wolf-friend Snapper dies (as seen in Wolfrider!). Well, that resolution was shattered with the addition of Grayling to the first flagship fic. Yeah, he's an unabashed Alt/Gay!Strongbow. Even his look is based off the first shots of young Strongbow we see in Wolfrider! But Grayling proved a great vehicle for alt-character development of Strongbow, Trueflight, Bearclaw, and turned out to be the perfect bridge between Strongbow and Swift's personalities. He ended up stealing his nephew Dart's thunder - founding the Jackwolf Riders .Grayling is another great example of a character telling his creator what to do - he started out a pretty laid-back happy type, but ended up becoming increasingly broody and serious as the stories went on. Now the Chief Hunter of Oasis, he's got the unenviable task of getting the Sun Folk and the Gliders to see eye to eye.

COPPERSKY
He's little, and doe-eyed, and he looks so frail you just want to hug him. He's also the deadliest warrior in the Jackwolf Riders, and a top graduate from the Rayek School of Superior Ego. He's a fragile warrior, an elegant glutton, and a Sun Folk lad with a taste for rowdy Go-Backs. I just adore Coppersky - he's such a contradiction. No one really knows exactly what goes on in head, except perhaps Sust - even his closest friends can't tell whether he's impossibly complex, or frustratingly transparent. Few elves can insult both Sun Folk and Wolfriders in a single sentence, but Coppersky manages with his customary panache. Half the population of Abode find him completely insufferable, and the other half can't stop cooing like doves around him. He is even cursed with a cadre of devoted elfin fan-girls despite making his views on the opposite sex very clear - "Unless you're Chani, Ember, or are bringing more food and comfortable bedding, you can all go to Hell!" Coppersky's hobbies include tormenting Scouter, tormenting Windkin, following Chani around like a lovesick puppy, and playing assorted tie-up games with Sust.
 
LITTLEFIRE
 Littlefire came about when Sun Girl and I were trying to figure out a kid for Aurek and Vaya - it seems like they needed one. A son, of course. It's just too cute to give Vaya a neverending line of sons. We wanted to make a different elf, someone who wasn't as cookie-cutter perfect in body and mind as his kin. Then we got talking about autism and how its disconnect from sensory input is not unlike what several of the higher-up elfin mystics like Aurek already have. And Littlefire was born. The idea is that his body is standard Abode-elf, but his mind is wired much more like the ancestors of the Firstcomers. As a result, he's constantly suffering from sensory overload, and finds it almost impossible to communicate with others, as he struggles to put a sentence together, and his sendings are too powerful for most elves. And our decision to pair Littlefire with a Wolfrider meant that their "wolves will rid themselves of the sick or unsound" philosophy was about to get the biggest shake-up since the days of old Timmorn and the Hunt. Definitely a "sleeper hit" of an elf for me. He's hardly a heavyweight, but he sticks with you longer than flashier characters.
 
BRIGHTMETAL
I could have easily posted the hot picture of Brightmetal, but I thought I'd go with the baby picture of him, because Sun Girl draws the cutest li'l babies. After a failed attempt to pair Aroree and Aurek together (they became uncle and niece instead), Sun Girl and I realized that Aroree and Two-Edge made the perfect couple. And Brightmetal came into existence well I was writing his parents' get-together fic. Brightmetal worships trolls, even if he thinks they're a little small and bumpy-looking, and he models himself on what he thinks a romantic troll prince should be. He's insufferably cheerful all the time, almost cocky in his belief that everything happens for a reason and it usually works out in his favour, and he just makes everyone around him smile.  He's really got a gift of feigning complete ignorance when something doesn't fit his world-view, and quite blithely thinks that everyone who disagrees with him is wrong. After all, he was raised by the greatest two people in the world, he reasons, so he must be right. Even his lifemate Shenshen wants to punch him sometimes, but you can't stay mad at someone so blissfully uncomplicated.
 
GYPSY MOTH
Gypsy Moth is a pretty new characters, but she earns a spot on my top ten by virtue of her unexpected birth. Sun Girl thought up a new daughter for my Swift after reading a fan comment that Swift ought to have a child with a "throwback" wolfy demeanor and more than a touch of Bearclaw. And Her Royal Hawtness Gypsy Moth was born. She's the daughter Bearclaw would have wanted, the wild child who lives in the Now and takes out her frustrations with her long-handled axe. At first she remained in an embryonic teenage stage, loping about in Suntop's old patchwork shirt and picking fights with the yearling wolves. And then Sun Girl and I were talking about how we needed a new girl-girl couple in the Alternaverse, and she said, "Hey, what about your daughter?" And almost immediately, Gypsy had a pirate girlfriend who constantly tried to coax her off dry land, despite Gypsy's rampant hydrophobia. A child of serendipity, Gypsy Moth snuck into the Alternaverse and carved out her own niche almost before I knew it. And I love it when my characters turn around and tell me what to do.

TASS
Tass is one of my earliest babies who almost didn't make it into the Alternaverse. She stayed in limbo for ages, until her debut in "Completion". Even her name almost didn't make it - originally she was going to have a long and frilly Sun Village name that would get shortened to Tass by everyone. But I could never find a longer name that didn't sound Mary Sue-ish, and I didn't think Tass was the sort of name Sun Folk would come up it on its own. But it was too cute to pass up, and after a hair change - she was originally a reddish-brunette - Tass finally appeared as Venka and Zhantee's daughter. Combining her mother's blocking powers and her father's shielding, Tass can bring High Ones to heel simply by blinking. But she'd much rather hang out in the dreamberry patch with Cricket all day. Spoiled rotten, she's a li'l pixie of a prima donna, and when she's crossed she's got a voice that's way too big for her tiny form (she holds the record of shortest Alternaverse elf). If she had any other parents they would have taken her to task long ago, but Zhantee dotes on his little princess, and Venka is too secretly amused by Tass's antics.


Best Anti-Wolfrider
SAVIN
Part of the fun of the Alternaverse is rocking the boat, and Sun Girl's alter-ego gets a special award as the most boat-rocking of the lot. Even after a thousand years as Skywise's lifemate, living with the Wolfriders, she still considers herself a pirate at heart. Swift is a chief, but not her chief, and even after all this time, they still get into tiffs when Savin's feisty self-reliance clashes with the touchy-feeling Wolfrider interdependency. She came very close to leaving the Wolfriders forever in the early years, her Iron Age mentality unable to jive with the Stone Age tribe. But she had no intention of losing her lifemate, and after managing to convince the Wolfriders to move to a more civilized climate, she came into her own as a tracker, herbalist, and occasional translator when humans came too close to the Holt. I haven't quite gotten the knack of writing about Savin's folk in Green Moon Bay, but I'm getting there, so expect more Green Moon Bay stories in the future.

Read all my favorite Sues' adventures in the Tales of the Alternaverse
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Elfquest copyright 2005 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2005 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts. Art copyright 2005 Erin Roberts.