this is my ElfQuest books 1-4 read-through thread please mute if you don't care about:
Elves
Wolves
Fantasy
Aliens
My lingering sanity

From the typography alone I hope you know how deliciously musty this book smells. I am instantly transported to my childhood where the books I owned somehow smelled exactly the same...

Also I love that they drop the fantasy/sci-fi garble immediately on page 2?

Already hitting some Big Yikes, gang

I think it is really important for me personally to critically look at things I admired and impacted me in my youth, like HP for example. "All your favs are problematic" rings true once again.

I actively forgot humans existed in this world. I guess that's a pretty big plot point...

Oh yeah baby this here is the GOOD stuff....

Oh I think the humans are religious zealots that are going to try and straight up kill all the elves? That is sounding more familiar. Human bad, wolf good.

Checkmate, gamers.

I'm barely five pages in and the ART. IS. SO. MY. SHIT!!! Lookit that little branch breaking the border and unsettling the reader... Maybe something bad WILL happen?!

Don't it always seem to go....

shocking to no one but I am extremely gay for these elves

Also very sorry, ALT text starts here, my app was truly not giving me the option before?

An extremely good boofer

Update: the elves put the survival of their whole displaced population on an unlikely new npc.... a hunk of meteorite.

"Only Skywise does not flinch from the piercing brilliance of the stars. Only he feels more wonder than fear." I know I'm making a lot of jokes but this stuff really cuts me on a truuuuly deep level.

It's sad seeing the cycle of violence and desperation take hold in the wolfriders so quickly. They are shaped like trauma just like everyone else I guess. Dang, fantasy... I'm trying to ESCAPE here. Anyway they are attacking an elf village in lieu of asking for help. Seems bad.

Stay thirsty, my friends.

Recognizing as a concept is so interesting to me. Like, a connection so strong and fated it just kind of winnows into you all at once and you spend however long discovering it is already there? It's REALLY. Really. My. Shit.

And they break it down in the Blood of Ten Chiefs book too like, acknowledging or denying a Recognition versus having a chosen Lifemate. LOVE. EET.

I FORGOT ABOUT THE TRUE NAMES YES

healing

So there is a contest of sorts to "win" the love interest. But actually they ask her in the beginning of she likes either dude and she just kinda blows it off... Then the rivals have a contest and everyone agrees actually it's only for the right to even ask her out.

Shitty elf keeps claiming he is going to win her and she just dunks him for calling her a trinket/prize. It's great. Everything gets set up like you might expect and then every step of the way the rivals contest is actually just to get Shitty elf to shut up and let her live.

The page where the contest starts...

Shitty elf: I own her!

Love Interest: Yeah I kinda wanna see this asshole get dunked on...

Main elf: Uh do we have to do this...?