For the unusual OC asks: 6, 12, and/or 18 for Tarlas? Thanks!
Ooh, Tarlas! Fascinating choice, thank you, I have done very little concrete thinking about him yet actually, so this is a lovely opportunity to stop and make my brain go "hmm" about him for a while, thank you for asking. [From this ask meme.]
6. Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?
I think that the way I've been writing Green/Mirkwood's culture and society makes for an extremely low-key, flexible place in this regard, in that they may not have ever even gone to the effort of codifying their standards and expectations into laws; despite having an ostensible king, they're very much a govern-by-consensus-and-vibes place (Oropher only got a crown because they realized they need a king to make everybody else take them seriously when they joined the Last Alliance and he got picked on the basis of "seems to know what he's talking about"; Thranduil inherited because Elendil and Gil-galad and everyone assumed that when Oropher died the crown would pass to him, and Greenwood went "oh okay sure why not") and the forest itself is a weird semi-sentient component in their society too, so...flexible, definitely flexible.
However, Tarlas personally is probably one of the less flexible of the Green/Mirkwood elves (which is why he and his husband, Tiraran, butt heads so much) and in a more structured society he would likely have ended up developing into a real rules-stickler sort of person — although still with a certain amount of flexibility for the sake of compassion, because if they were taking votes on which member of the Scary Spider Forest most merited the "kind as summer" label, he would probably win.
12. How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?
He's married to a pretty tall dude and is bffs with an extremely tall king (this applies regardless of which of them is king at the time) so that's not usually a problem for him. Also, if none of them are around, he can probably get a tree to help him out because Green/Mirkwood is nice (to its elves anyway) like that.
18. What embarrasses them?
Ooh...honestly, everything probably XD I'm kidding, but Tarlas just seems like he veers between "sedately unruffled" and "ball of anxiety" with very little middle-ground in between. I say "seems" because I've only actually written him in one scene so far, and that was a scene that wasn't really focused on him or his feelings but rather him comforting someone else, so his actual personality may develop differently once I start writing him properly. But my initial concept of him is of someone easy to fluster (and one of the only people in the whole forest who can fluster the much more stoic Tiraran).
The original "unofficial ruling quartet of Greenwood" pre-Last Alliance is: Tiraran (who would be very sensible if he didn't have terrifying taste in friends and absolutely no concept of self-preservation oh dear), Oropher (who would punch god and laugh about it; easily makes everyone else look cautious and retiring), Gilthawen (who is all sensible-mom-energy on the surface but if you look at who her friends are you realize that her prudence maybe doesn't go as deep as she thinks it does), and Tarlas (who is the designated keeper of the braincell until he gets flustered, at which point Tiraran takes over custody...at least until they all collectively yeet the braincell into the forest and go full "charge 'em and they scatter" in grand Tolkien tradition).
...and you know what, since my brain is now churning on the subject, I think I might go work on some fic with the Mirkwood elves right now. Thank you for the inspiration!
