The elf was always making dead-baby jokes at the *worst* time.

[brown_betty]

YOU GUYS, FANLORE. Sorry, but it's getting rather awesome, IMO. Does anyone know the origin of the inappropriate elf, though?

Speaking of which, does anyone know who's been left in charge of the CFAN archive? It's pretty much only accessible through the wayback machine, atm, and I think it might be a good project for Open DoorsSPEAKING OF WHICH

Comments

[strangerian]

For what it's worth, the first elf story I know of was in Professionals fandom (possibly "White Magic"), and it resembled Inappropriate Elf, though I'm not sure if it fits all the signs and portents exactly. It was followed by a flood of elf stories, some more inappropriate than others, including a number of interesting supernatural-past-lives stories, elves-with-an-excuse, elves-without-an-excuse, and parodies-on-parodies such as a Doyle-as-a-were-elf story (that's right, he becomes an elf only under the full moon).

I don't recall reading any elf stories before Professionals, although I can't say I read everything, or even got into all the branches of Classic ST, and SW and B7 fandoms. Overall it seems like space operas are less likely to use Elfy Elves, since there are so many possibilities in other-world-aliens and mirror-universe alternates and whatnot. S/H might be a better candidate, and I really didn't try to read everything there.

[browngirl]

Hey. yay for the OTW! I love hearing about them for you.