#TBH THO IT'S A KINDA IMPORTANT DISCUSSION OF TACE'S MENTALITY / WHATEVER and it only barely scratches the surface

[tallowes]

I’m working on a bio template by working on Tace’s bio and doing the personality part has been really insightful / helped me to remember some things about him that are #Canon but I sometimes forget because I’m a Fool and the reason why I juxtapose / compare him to Anders a lot mentally while I work on meta-level shit.  Tace was given to the Circle as a very young child, it’s basically all he’s ever known, as someone who’s very strong willed and stubborn he always had some trouble living in the Circle. But when his dreamer capabilities kicked in at 13 things got infinitely worst and he had to very quickly readapt and get the authorities on his side just to survive and not be made tranquil. In the span of a few short months as his powers became less sporadic and more consistent and the enchanters sorted out what was going on Tace went from being just another ( if a bit bratty ) apprentice to being considered the most dangerous person in the Circle and a threat to the safety of the other mages just by living.  He was isolated from the other mages, given private sleeping quarters with wards, etc. on them ( basically a glorified isolation cell ) and a constant guard of templars day and night. He was basically treated like a dangerous criminal or plague victim. Some of that is justified, he was a very young mage and it’s talked about in DA2 just how bad can be if something goes wrong with a dreamer. However it all set him on edge and made him shift quickly from disliking the templars and enchanters because he’s a unruly preteen to thinking of them as threats because of the harsh 180. Tace is smart, very observant and while he’s hot-blooded he doesn’t like to act or lash out, especially when it’s a serious situation where that could really hurt him. He wants to have all the facts so he can point by point tell you why you’re wrong. It became clear to him that they were watching him more intensely than they were anyone else, looking for signs of instability or possession and he knew if they felt they found something regardless if it was there he’d be made tranquil. Even at that age he found the concept nightmarish and was terrified of it being done to him. So he stopped acting out completely, or questioning things too much or really showing any outward signs of not being an exemplary circle mage as much as possible as a means of self preservation. So while Anders, his contemporary in the same Circle was becoming more rebellious Tace was becoming more docile and embedded in the community. 

When Falon’din’s Putrescence locked on to him around 14-15 and he began to not just deal with more frequent and intense demon attacks than the rest of the mages and the physical / mental / emotional toll that took on him, but also began wake up with physical bruising his life was genuinely in danger from the templars. Knowing where this would likely lead he preempted the talks of tranquility before they got too serious by essentially begging for his life,  pointing out that he had now faced about 2 years of near constant demonic assault of all kinds on a level of intensity none of the rest had at a young “untrained and unstable” age and had never had a single moment of faltering.  Thankfully since Irving and Greagoir aren’t complete monsters they agreed he had proven to have a very strong will and he would not be made tranquil but he would still live apart from the rest, go through the harrowing and have a constant guard of at least 1 templar, usually 2, assigned to him for the rest of his life. Tace agreed readily, he didn’t really have a choice and frankly he found the idea of someone around to kill him if he fucked up comforting. His main strength against demons had always been his stubbornness and loathing of being told what to do but Falon’din’s Putrescence is in a category all of it’s own and the idea of what could happen if he did finally break and give up terrified him as much as being tranquil did. Both because of the loss of Self / control and the possible carnage that could be done through him.  Over time he became a split personality with his real self curdling into something very unpleasant as he pushed down all his negative traits, thoughts, feelings etc. and basically lied almost constantly about himself. He couldn’t completely stop being his naturally stubborn independent self but he stamped it down enough to come across as an eccentric and a bit of jerk and not a dangerously rebellious and angry garbage fire of a person, which he actually is. He maintained his shit by basically only caring about himself and focusing intensely on his studies, research and duties, excelling as an academic and a researcher and gaining the rank of enchanter.  People like Anders were inherently dangerous to his survival, not because they themselves where a threat to him physically or anything but because Tace deeply felt for them and sympathized with them. Tace’s seeming inability to connect with others is both the product of his on going trauma and as part of his self-preservation. If he cares about people like Anders, who are clearly struggling, failing to thrive and being obviously miss treated and subjected to barbaric punishments for doing / thinking things he agrees with for reasons he empathizes with he will 100% mclose it and have outburst after outburst and eventually lead to his own demise. So he actively squashes his better traits like his very real and very deep compassion and instead lets himself see everyone as a threat, suspicious or just Not Important or Real like he is. Boom now he doesn’t get upset about poor Jowan, guy just was fucking loser who sucked and couldn’t cut it like he can so rip adios laddie don’t write. While he and Anders have similarities ( personalities not suited for the circle, long bouts of enforced isolation, mental illness struggles, massive sense of betrayal, strong wills, intensely emotional, regretfully care a LOT about others, “radical ideas” like basic human rights for everyone ) Tace’s situation from day one was much more precarious, since 13 he was living on the knife’s edge with opinion on him liable to change irrevocably with just one bad day and he fucking knew it. His ways of coping and working to survive were much different, he used his inherent extroversion, people skills, intelligence and sheer force of will to convince people and to blend in and appear “safe”. Basically becoming an actor putting on some kind of sick play for the amusement of overlords who held his life in their hands. While I’ve joked and talked about how much of an asshole he is and how he has little respect for others or the dead in particular the fact is that other half of his split personality rarely comes out. The era it was most apparent in was DA2 when he’d finally left the Circle, knowing that if he had stayed and let the transfer to the Gallows go thru it was a death sentence. During that time as an apostate largely on his own or with people like Hawke’s gang who really can’t complain much about bad behavior / attitude his true personality got to make an appearance. He was mean, petty, vindictive, intensely distrustful, careless with other people and honestly kind of awful to be around, but along with that he was also helpful, protective of others ( especially Anders, Merrill, Isabella and Fenris ) , considerate, thoughtful, funny and sporadically deeply compassionate. Tace without all his baggage and trauma would be a deeply compassionate, witty, good natured well regarded natural mentor friend ( if a bit of a hard ass ) but at is stands his experiences have made him manipulative, cruel, brutal, callous with the emotions / lives of others, intensely selfish and self centered, stubborn / spiteful to the point of self damaging and largely unable to connect with others on deeper levels. When in situations where his life is in danger from the opinion of groups or “superiors” like the Circle, Mage Rebellion camps or the Inquisition he comes across as a largely harmless academic with an at times strong personality. When he deems himself out of the line of sight or with people he at least trusts not to narc on him he drops some level of the pretense and it becomes increasingly clear he’s very fucked up, deeply unpleasant, needs a lot of therapy ASAP and is absolutely earth shatteringly furious and violently egalitarian. I think it says a lot about him that he has two main reasons that fuel him in his constant battle against possession and they’re that he’s so furiously individualistic and stubborn that he’d rather die and have his immortal soul shredded into non-existence than lose even 1 spec of the bodily autonomy he still has and that he knows exactly how catastrophic it would be if any demon, let alone something like Falon’din’s Putrescence got control of him, and he would rather suffer for eternity than let that kind of calamity happen, especially if he’d be the vehicle for it because despite all his callousness the idea he might be party to that level of monstrousness makes him sick.