So, one of the things that a lot of forum members have observed about so-called "elf month" is that most of the stories were about faeries/fairies, not elves. Indeed, I think the only story that was generally agreed to be about elves is "Sweet, Savage Sorcerer".
The reason for this is quite obvious, I think - there are two traditions for the use of the word "elf" - the first is the older one, which makes "elf" be a type of, or a general term for, faeries. By this tradition indeed we had an elf month. The second is the tradition that goes back to Tolkien and was made prominent by Dungeons and Dragons, which has Elves be basically a different race of people living alongside men.
The thing is, it is the second tradition that is far more dominant today, especially in the bad, cookie-cutter high fantasy that "Sweet, Savage Sorcerer" was trying to emulate. And when Rachel said in the beginning of the month that she has an allergy to elves, I was thinking that was what she must have meant - indeed, I'm quite averse to these elves myself. I'm pretty sure that's what most people expected.
So I think I was quite surprised that the vast majority of stories - three full stories and two flash - were actually from the faery tradition. Not because I actually quite enjoy that tradition - I have no problem with Rachel disagreeing on my taste - it's because conflating the two sub-genres seems like a move I'd expect from someone who is ignorant about fantasy, rather than from someone like Rachel. I think that's what has given rise to the many "faeries are not elves" comments in the threads - most people, when they hear the word "elf", think of a D&D elf, and we all expected podcastle to be aware of this fact.
Of course, from a personal POV, I'm much gladder that we got a month of faery stories, as frankly D&D elves are as tedious as hell.
