Why is this a thing?

Elves in myth are usually depicted/interpretated as "humans but magical" or "humans but better on all fronts" when they're not tiny people tho.

Oh. guess op's example is just a different interpretation of what "tiny people" means.

What about their original concept from folklore and mythology?

mangadex.com/manga/22323

It was to compete against Goblin Slayer, Monster Musume and Fat elf diet

Which one, there are different mythologies with different creatures referred to as elfs.

What about making them big, strong, smart, and a warmonger race?

The only mythology which references elves is norse mythology. The other elves would be the germanic folklore elves. So to answer your question I'd say If you want an epic setting you use the mythologycal elves, if you want a fairy tale or low fantasy setting you should use folkloric elves

No, only the norse called em elves. or alfr.
Everyone else had their own shit under their own names that only got conflated later.

...

There's already 10,000 monster races out there.

...

>four arrows in the quiver
>quiver on the back
>bow on the back
>strung bow on the back
argh

Still an imagined creature.
There is no imperative to imagination. No matter the time. A fictional thing made up right now doesn't have authority over what people will dream up tomorrow.

>No, only the norse called em elves. or alfr.
Old English: ælfe

How many settings interpret elves as being like cantankerous old people who are set in their ways? I dunno, something like:
>An old as fuck elf who has been chopping wood since wood chopping was a thing
>Has a particular way he likes to do it, even though superior techniques for wood chopping have cropped up throughout the ages
>Doesn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to do it his way because it's always worked just fine
>Has trouble coping with new technology and new things in general
>Has probably not seen anyone outside his elven village for hundreds of years, if not thousands
>He's damn good at chopping wood in his own way though, since he's had so much practice with it
>This is just one individual and there are dozens of elves like him in his village, amazing warriors, archers, tailors and armour smiths, but they all have difficulty understanding new ideas

A mixture of cultural inflexibility and isolation would explain why they don't advance at a particularly fast pace compared to other races. Being immortal means you don't need to make children to replace you in your old age and a lack of fresh blood means a lack of fresh ideas and perspectives.

Baby steps, normies don't know what trigger discipline is much less that you didn't carry your bow around strung or where arrows hung

I still think the original tales are more "official" than fetish doujin #753

>>four arrows in the quiver
What's the problem here? legit question

user, "Old" English is what happened when norse invader influenced Germanics got tired of trying to speak Roman.

What are you gonna do with 4 arrows?

Maybe he already used a good chunk

If you're a human. shoot 1~4 guys tops.
If you're an elf, shoot 4~12 guys.

>why is this a thing?
Because elves don't exist so everyone is free to interpret them as they please. Especially since post-Tolkien elves in pop culture have been disconnected from their fantasy roots. In other words, now that even the source material has been declared moot there's no "wrong" way to do an elf. Even the elves that are "more like orcs" are entirely valid elves.

>Modern interpretations of a beautiful man having to be slightly feminine
One of the signs of a crumbling society which has grown lax due to a lack of competition.

>implying

It's because beautiful has a gendered implication now it didn't centuries years ago

You just made me imagine handsomely rugged elves.

'Beautiful' and 'handsome' always had gendered implications, and men who straddled the border were always considered uncommonly good looking. None of which has anything to do with strength; weakness of mind and body always had negative connotations.

Source?

As they should or can really, do what you want, they're goddamn elves. be.

They are called Ñoldor.

You mean androgenous figures like David Bowie? They are just objectively attractive (facial features and charisma) but with nice hair and take care of themselves.
Guess you were born in le wrong jenneration. If only we could go back to the good old day of typhoid and murder, then you wouldn't see teen girls like charming popstars with lithe bodies and long hair.

>One of the signs of a crumbling society which has grown lax due to a lack of competition.
I'm not sure if you're referring to modern humans or to elves.

>male elf
>that hip to shoulder ratio

soy race

Alternatively, elves could be descended biologically from a longer-legged mammal of some kind, like the equine equivalent of a gorilla or some kind of weird pseudogiraffe.

Also, it could mean that elvish martial arts are like 80% kicks.

Modern humans are elves, just that our orc/dwarves/humans are other humans, rather than explicitly seperate species.

to be fair, IRL most old people get trouble with using new tech mostly because of mental degradation by age, also mobility and physical strength is less than it was while you are young. That means that trying things (trial and error) is riskier because you can get injure beyond repair.

If you can live a shiton of years AND in peak physical condition, of course you are going to adapt to easy to new things, even if you are 1000 years old.

That's closer to how I see dwarves.

"Everyone wants the dick of Peter Grill"

if they are physical weaker, martial arts won't be enough. Just look at what happened when Europeans, Russians, Americans, etc got into martial arts. Heavy weight titles in most combat sports doesn't belong to their creators from Asia.

If you have two person with equal skill and experience, the stronger (bigger, taller and tougher) will win.

>Peter Grill is known throughout the land as the world's strongest fighter. He has a girlfriend who he's steadily trying to get closer with. Life is good for him. Until he realizes that dozens of women, who want to bear strong children, are all vying for his seed.
Welp, I'm on board.

I really like this image, it seems to me that this is a millenia old elf, once beautiful and graceful as the ones you commonly see but forged by many battles and many many MANY years to look like this, perhaps the oldest elf alive, maybe the only elf left?

I like how the artist still manages to make him seem beautiful, like he might be forged by battle and war but his eyes seems so peaceful and forlorning for a quiet kind of love.

I might be rambling but this is the inspiration this kind of pic is giving me, thanks for sharing user and as a Scotsman, loving the tribal blue tats as well.

I ran High Elves pretty similar to that in the campaign setting I ran back in college. Elves as a species were fluffed that their immortality was fueled by their own pride, and when they got their collective species-wide ass kicked, they splintered. Half decided "Nope, nope, that didn't happen, we're still the best, fuck alla ya'll" , ran back home to elfland, and became cantankerous old people who sink ships that get near them and ride out every few years or so to stomp on some peasants so they feel superior.

The other half said "Well fuck you guys, we actually FOUGHT you shits" and went underground to continue the war and be drow. They're both still total assholes though.

I also really played up Pathfinder's "elves adapt to their environment very visibly" thing, so after millenia of separation both types of elves look wildly different. Drow have bioluminescences for fucks sake.

Noldor, Melniboneans, Druchii

Well you have the faggot features too and nobody would ever mistake you for an elf.

I hate to say it because it baits a certain type, but if we take the whole "Humans but better" angle and add some strength (As per Tolkien's original elves), I kind of like Fascist-esque High Elves. Warmongering, supremacist, long-lived and scheming. Maybe not full evil, and have some nice Wood Elves who are chill to counter it, but I like that angle.

once again, FIGHTER MASTER RACE! Mages can't even compete

>If you have two person with equal skill and experience, the stronger (bigger, taller and tougher) will win.
Considering the elf age thing, most of the time they're going to have greater experience by a lot, but either way what I'm mostly talking about is just because an elf is humanoid doesn't mean that biologically it works exactly the same as a human. Eldar shit crystals for fucks sake.

That might just be me liking making traditional fantasy races decidedly more weird than they usually are though. Still, it's worth thinking about exactly what kind of creatures elves descended from if they evolved naturally, or if they were created what kind of god/species/natural event created them and how it might inform their biology.

Because Japanese can’t interpret races well outside of enormous stereotypes and fantasy races especially have been subject to some serious Flanderization

In Tolkien elves were literally ubermensch, they were graceful and beautiful because they were fundamentally better, not because they were weedy stickmen.

Because that’s dwarves schtick. Elves should have been doing the most efficient method from day 1, effortlessly

>Because Japanese can’t interpret races well outside of enormous stereotypes
Just like the west cannot interpret entities like the Kitsune and Nekomata without using stereotypes like "girl with animal ears, dude!"

it's the equivalent of blacked porn for neckbeards, except more pathetic because elves aren't real

I agree with your general observations, but...
>Just look at what happened when Europeans, Russians, Americans, etc got into martial arts. Heavy weight titles in most combat sports doesn't belong to their creators from Asia.
You do know weight classes exist, right? Regarding that
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_medalists_in_taekwondo
The top 4 in all time medals is China, (South) Korea, USA and Taipei/Taiwan.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_medalists_in_judo
Here we also see the Far East overrepresented.

Perhaps if you square off the average Chinaman against the average Muscovite you'd have a point, but almost all martial arts have weight categories that make the entire point moot. The Chinese Kung Fu heavyweights are either giants by their country's standards, or manlets packed with stupidly large muscles.

Because the concept of kitsune and other monster girls has basically split down the middle in Japan, let alone the West:

There are fox spirits that superstitious folk blame for playing tricks on them and ruining everything

And there are ear&tail-swapped anime cat girls that are just selling sex

>the west
And and you know, every anime

except shapeshifting animals have been a thing all across the world for as long as fantasy/mythology existed.
You're still largely right tho, locals tend to stereotype forreign myth/deities a lot, since they're just not as important as local ones.

>taekwondo
>real martial art

You realize weight classes are a concession that the biggest fighters would just clean house with all of the light/featherweights right?

Yeah, I know. That's why I said the average Muscovite could probably wreck the average Chink's shit.

>most conducive way for the creators and consumers to elaborate on their personal fantasies.
If this was the case than every male elf in hentai ever would be like that. Which is just plain wrong.

Stop projecting your insecurities on silly shit like this. Talking out of your ass is such a reddit-thing to do.

>male elves in hentai
>implying they exist
males outside of the protagonist are ever rarely even important in these power fantasy fetish shits

Not even average, if you took Olympic judo and threw out the weight classes you would reduce east Asia’s podium placements by like 80%

Because Europoors/Murricans are on average heavier/larger than asians.
Asians still do well in middle/lightweight since the euro/US pool is comparatively smaller there. Which is the whole point of the weightclass system.

I like to give male elves ones of the biggest dicks among humanoid races just to subvert the trope of big, barbarian orcs with big dicks, but also keep elves restrained and cold-headed.

I think the biggest problem in Veeky Forums is that they try to create fictitious worlds but trying to follow IRL logic. It doesn't work like that, you can have some similarities, but if you are obsessed with realism, just do a realistic campaign.

It's like /v/ discussing realistic graphics in games.

>In final fantasy XI, its "elves" were more like orcs. Big, strong, stupid and a warmonger race.

I think you're really misrepresenting Elvaan and Sandoria.

Beyond that, while the Elvaan were elf like in their name and appearance, it was the Mithra(and to some extent, the Tarutaru) who were the elf expies, and best fit the various concepts of elves.

Hold up, is your head so far up your own ass that you are trying to argue about the quality of writing in porn?
Are you this mentally deficient?

Thats nice and all but even Japan knows that human women are superior.

Check and mate anti-anime redditfags.

>It's like /v/ discussing realistic graphics in games.
we did "realistic" graphics better in the past than we do now with our uncanny valley 3d shit.

God bless Amahara.

I can get both my hardcore rape fetish stuff and my hilarious comedy porn all in the same artist.

Why just one flavor of supremacist elves? Why not multiple?

German elves
>Highly militant supremacists
>Obsessed with the idea of racial purity
>Deem civilian casualties simply a means of speeding up their 'cleansing'
>General strategy can be described as 'avoidant', seeking to force the enemy to engage in unfavorable terms and when they're outflanked
>Compulsively dig trenches and holes when not doing anything
>Incapble of understanding humor or sarcasm, with sometimes tragic consequences "Sure, let's just kill them all. That'll do wonders for our reputation!")
>Autistically play wargames when not waging war, to the point where the wargames can get in the way of actual war

French elves
>Highly militant supremacists
>Entirely infatuated with their culture and language
>See themselves as a civilizing force that doesn't need the consent of 'savages'
>General strategy can be described as offensive, seeking to put pressure on the enemy until they break
>Entire army runs on wine and cheese, a wine shortage cripples them more than an ammunition shortage
>The cities they occupy retain a faint smell of garlic even long after they're gone
>Have a reputation as highly untrustworthy allies. The French elves themselves blame it on their allies fighting during their obligatory one hour lunch break

British Elves
>Highly militant supremacists
>Entirely infatuated that others hate and envy them
>See themselves as too high to get involved in the affairs of lessers, unless there's profit to be mad
>General strategy can be described as bravely fighting until the last half-elf
>A group of drunk elven youths once set a human embassy on fire, their leaders replied with "It's just banter m8"
>Once pulled out of the Grand Elven-Human alliance, hoping to profit from it. It... did not end well.

why is that halfling so preoccupied with succubus street?

Heh.

Well, also that smaller, weaker fighters make fights last longer because modern combat sports have roots in boxing promoters trying to bilk rubes.

Shit, dude, I'm the guy that posted that and I love this. I'm already sort of developing a late-Renaissance/early Enlightenment fantasy setting, and while I'm trying not to fully just use "real nations but as a fantasy race" I really like these and might split even the High Elves up.

Shit, dude, I think I might just make the Wood Elves Americans.

...

yeah, I agree. I remember a link on youtube of a small guy winning in a friendly match against someone bigger. There was a skinny wrestler (freestyle) vs a big bodybuilder (or at least they said it was a bodybuilder). The small guy lift the big guy like a rag doll without problems and even pin him on the floor. Then I read that the "small guy" was an olympian with a gold medal. That made sense, but if you make him fight against a heavy weight wrestler, that will be completely different than fighting an untrained "big guy"

>elves are MILF fuckers

makes sense

>uncanny valley shit

IT'S NOT A BUG, IT'S A FEATURE. Pay 50 dollars for the same game but HD, goy!

but what about the African elves? The latino elves? The japanese elves? The australian elves?

>>Entire army runs on wine and cheese, a wine shortage cripples them more than an ammunition shortage

kek

>wine and cheese
The wine better be white or I swear to god

Gotta leave some niches for humans/orcs/whatever.
No I will not submit to your robotic creepy money scheme.

What's wrong with the French elves wanting their wine in the same color as the blood of their enemies?

I think most people underestimate the longevity of elves. Just image, a special forces of only elves, with experience of 100 years in war zones in top physical condition, they will be a pain in the ass for an enemy army. Even if they are "weak" compared to a human, if you put technology, magic or even simple weapons, they will have a great advantage than other races with a shorter lifespan.

Even without their magic background, being able to live a lot of years and maintain a young healthy body for that time, it's an extremely high advantage.

>African elves?

Orcs

Basically, there's a group of fantasy fan that gets absolutely buttroasted by the idea that something is just all around better than humans. There's another group that hates the specific traits of elves, because they portray things they don't like in real life as positive or effective.

These two groups have a great deal of overlap, and together they're large enough to make an impact on how elves are perceived in games and modern fantasy.

>African elves
The Trolls that the elves devolved from.
The elves don't like it when this fact is brought up

>wanting their wine in the same color as the blood of their enemies
OH, you think that's a motherfucking joke? It's not.
There was this military march from the 1600s (M'sieur d'Turenne) which refers to invading an enemy territory... because it grows grapes that make for great wine when mixed with enemy blood. Not even making this up.

Honestly, I could see elves doing the while tribal mask thing.

>Bob the Adventurer comes home early from dungeoning to find his middle-aged mother getting fucked by Ithrandulir the Elf

Somehow this feels is even worse than NTR.
Hardmode: He fucked your mother as revenge because you fucked his wife a week a ago

I can totally imagine smug British Elves telling the French Elves that "yes, there is indeed no such fortress."

and the cycle of revenge sex goes on and on.

Fucking somebody's mother isn't NTRing/cuckolding them.
Well, at least it shouldn't be.