private & selective ELIZABETH COMSTOCK of bioshock infinite written by petra
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OVERVIEW.
columbia floats above north america and is made of neoclassical buildings similar to those present within the white city of 1893 chicago world’s fair. the design relies heavily upon romanesque appearances and colonial american influences. while reactors, propellers and balloons are present throughout the city, its ability to float is due to quantum levitation which allows objects to be suspended indefinitely. the city also has rain catchers that collect water from precipitation in the clouds to keep the vegetation and citizens supplied with water.
columbia was designed with docking stations and propulsion devices to allow sections of it to move about independently. the city was constructed for long distance travel, allowing national and international tours, with a regular route across the united states. these routes featured periodic stops near major cities, connecting to relay stations which contain transport rockets which grant passage to columbia via coded signal. the city’s internal means of transportation include zeppelins, cargo barges, hovercrafts, gondolas that move along heavy steel cables, and sky-lines. bridges are also automated to connect with other moving portions of the city at various stations, scheduled like any other transportation system.
PURPOSE.
the u.s. government intended columbia to be a showcase of american exceptionalism. through tours across various countries, america would be capable of spreading its vision of the future and their ideals to others. through rosalind lutece’s discovery of the lutece particle, which held atoms at a fixed position and financial support by zachary hale comstock, a charismatic american religious figure, the city was created and presented at the 1893 chicago world’s fair.
the city was launched to great fanfare and was later dispatched to distant shores. what began as an endeavor of achievement and hope went horribly wrong. in 1901, during the boxer rebellion where american hostages had been taken, columbian forces intervened without orders from the u.s. government and destroyed beijing. the destruction of the city caused the death of many chinese civilians and demonstrated the danger that columbia posed to the rest of the world.
when the city was revealed to be heavily armed and to have acted on its own, a rift emerged between leadership in columbia and washington, resulting in columbia being recalled to american shores. in response, on july 6th, 1902, columbia seceded from the union and the following year disappeared into the clouds. zachary comstock had complete control over the city, and so, set to create his ideal society.
BELIEFS & LIFE.
the emerging utopia had its flaws, though they were not seen as problems by its leaders. zachary comstock and his political party, the founders, believed that columbia embodied the true society envisioned by the founding fathers of the united states, where white anglo-saxons ruled over the world and that their country served a higher purpose in ‘civilizing’ through military might�� and propagating their particular brand of religion. to many columbians, the u.s. had turned away from its divine purpose, having abandoned slavery, religion, militarism and racial supremacy. the u.s. and the rest of the world below were viewed with contempt, described as ‘the sodom below’, a sinful and chaotic world which only deserved to be destroyed. columbia, in comparison, was referred to as ‘another ark, for another time’ by its citizens, meaning the city was the only source of goodness and order, and once columbia destroyed the rest of the world, everything could restart pure and anew under the city’s absolute rule. due to zachary comstock’s dogma, columbians had a very narrow perspective of american history ; president abraham lincoln was labeled ‘the apostate’ by citizens for ending slavery, while john wilkes booth was revered as a saint.
with the city free from the united states’ anti-slavery and workers’ safety laws, institutionalized racism and elitism were widespread and legally enforced in columbia. anglo-saxon supremacy was widely asserted by the upper classes, matched with poor treatment of the immigrant working class. there was constant paranoia over the ‘foreign horde’ due to the racial beliefs of the time, cuasing columbian xenophobia and militarism. africans, asians, indians, and irish, were regularly subjugated in columbia, with many working to power columbia’s industry. this was under the guise of employment, while some were brought in by force to serve as slaves or indentured servants. the more privileged classes lead more leisurely lives. this was all justified by the majority of columbia’s citizens with the belief that the minorities had risen above their station, and that their toil was a form of penance. others simply saw it as a source of cheap, expendable labor.
as a result of this separation, minorities were largely relegated to menial labor with no opportunity for upward mobility, and asking for improvements would likely result in being attacked by the city police, or worse. the hard labor workforce at fink manufacturing, well-known for mistreating its workers, was chiefly composed of the city’s minority population and was closely supervised and controlled by heavily armed police officers. the majority of columbia’s working class lived in shabby, crime-ridden, and diseased slums, a stark contrast to the clean, stately neighborhoods of the upper classes. those few who worked in areas where the founders dominated were expected to be servile to their betters while dealing with inhumane working and living conditions. some who worked in the homes of the elite enjoyed slightly better lives depending on their owner’s generosity.
such policies were widely accepted by the majority of the upper and middle class. to them, this hierarchy was heaven-born and divinely ordained. some exceptions existed, with few progressives operating in secret, who published rebellious material demanding equality, and who provided safe lodgings for escaped workers. ‘protecting our race’ was the official maxim of columbia’s police, and any attempts of interracial couples was illegal ( public stoning of those who disobeyed was a common diversion during important celebrations ). any attempts to promote egalitarianism lead to imprisonment and torture. murder and torture of minorities was ignored by the founders, as well as the police authorities, if not outright encouraged. control was also enforced covertly and brutally by a splinter group of the founders, the fraternal order of the raven, which doubled as an assassination group and special operations force who regularly lynched, attacked and kidnapped those who threatened zachary comstock’s ideals.
columbia was a militantly theocratic and fascist society that idolized american exceptionalism. religion and government were one and the same, and devotion to the city and its leader/prophet was required of its citizens. this was based upon the teachings of zachary comstock as a divine prophetic figure, as well as interpretations of the founding fathers, whom columbian belief said were appointed by the archangel columbia to rise america above all other nations in law, technology, and power. the belief that zachary comstock was chosen to complete the mission of the founding fathers was widespread. his word was law, though elected officials did exist. images of him, annabelle comstock and elizabeth alongside angels were all over columbia, which were presented as heavenly places. columbia’s religiosity appears like a form of protestant christianity that would have risen during that era due to the third great awakening, but little resembles actual christianity. columbia’s prevailing religious ideology was very much a personality cult that is typical of despotic regimes.
deviation from this state-imposed dogma was unacceptable and illegal. the founders, led by zachary comstock and columbia's elite, were the prevailing political faction in columbia, retaining exclusive control over the city's society, government and business infrastructure. they enforced comstock's religious and social vision out of blind devotion or greed, and in turn benefited from it as part of the privileged social strata. the founders were also extremely militaristic, enforcing their laws and operations in a police state with a huge army of police officers and security automatons. they used child indoctrination to encourage military service through theater. a fleet of airships, headed by comstock's personal zeppelin, kept constant watch over columbia's skies, ready to attack on comstock 's orders.
BUSINESS.
fink manufacturing was the largest business in columbia, as well as its largest employer and manufacturer. due to a high demand for vigors in the city, fink manufacturing bottled and distributed vigors produced by independent, contracted businesses. the work floor at fink manufacturing showed its dominance in various markets — one floor, for example, was devoted to gun automatons, while the one above focused on children's toys.
smaller businesses produced various items for the people of columbia, the founders, and the vox populi. however, most of these companies were quickly bought out by fink's cruel business empire, leaving him the sole distributor for goods in the city. there were some exceptions, such as the duke & dimwit company, which produced propaganda pieces via books, toys, and machines to indoctrinate columbia's children into its ideals.
despite these business opportunities, 50% of every silver eagle earned went directly to comstock, which deeply affected the laborers of columbia. furthermore, fink's price gouging and heavy-handed exploitation of his workers forced them into poverty, frequently leading to starvation and disease.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY.
comstock believed that scientific knowledge was the blueprint of god's work, and that it could, therefore, be practiced and controlled in the name of god. many advancements in columbia were the product of the mind of rosalind lutece, a quantum physicist and one of the most prominent scientists of her time. her work led to the discovery of the lutece field, a field capable of manipulating the properties of subatomic particles. one such application was the suspension of particles in space, facilitating the creation of airborne machinery and, by extension, the city of columbia.
following her work on the lutece field, rosalind lutece made an even more ground-breaking discovery : the device she created allowed her to interact with parallel realities, leading her to contact her duplicate from another universe, robert lutece. through their joint effort, they developed machinery capable of creating contingencies in the space-time continuum, or tears, allowing robert to travel to rosalind's reality ( albeit at a great physical cost ).
zachary comstock interpreted these tears as revelatory visions of the future, increasing his delusions of grandeur. using these tears, he orchestrated the transfer of anna dewitt, the daughter of an alternate version of himself to columbia and rechristened her as elizabeth to become his successor. he unknowingly gave birth to her reality-bending powers by splitting her form across multiple realities.
while most citizens regarded these tears as a mere curiosity, individuals such as jeremiah and albert fink exploited their access to parallel universe technologies. while albert fink simply used tears as a means of trans-dimensional artistic theft, jeremiah copied the designs of other researchers to create radically new technologies, such as vigors, automotive horses, the voxophones, and motorized patriots. based on the blueprints of an armored suit, he engineered the songbird defense system.
#boy oh boy this is long#but it's v much needed !!!#i recommend u reading it if u know absolutely NOTHING abt bioshock infinite#also i'm shook#while columbia might have amazing scenery#their ideals and beliefs are absolutely disgusting#not to mention zachary comstock is an evil son of a bitch#i hate him from the bottom of my heart#thank you#headcanon tbt.#long post /#racism /#slavery /
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uhm im shy but your blog is beautiful and i nearly screamed when i saw it because i love bioshock bye!
dfkgjdkshjfdhf i screamed because i received this message. thank you so much, i truly appreciate it. have an amazing day!
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Goodnight, Irene. // Bioshock Infinite (2013)
a perfect little microcosm before the storm.
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ELIZABETH COMSTOCK + close-up.
#elizabeth tag tbt.#the reason why i picked alexandra daddario as elizabeth's fc is bc of the eyes#the first thing i've noticed about liz in the game were her eyes#the change of her character can be noticed in her eyes#it's kdashjfkhasf
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psa : i write elizabeth comstock, not anna dewitt.
#while anna is a part of her#she always will be#she never got the chance to be anna dewitt#anna disappeared the day she was given to comstock#and while elizabeth DOES identify herself as booker's daughter#she can't identify herself with the purity and normalcy that anna was supposed to represent#and this was my ted talk#out of character tbt.
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━━━ WHAT TRAIT MAKES YOUR MUSE LOVABLE? repost, do not reblog.
i. A BRAIN : you radiate a quiet intellect, and it's your great mind that draws people to you. you're extremely well-read, and your vast knowledge makes you an excellent conversationalist. you have a smaller group of friends ( you go for quality over quantity ), but they're all just as smart and intellectually stimulating as you are. get all of you in a room, and you could solve most of the world's problems before lunch! sometimes your intellectual pursuits take you away from having a robust social life, but your intellectual contributions more than make up for a lighter social calendar.
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do you have any bioshock blogs you'd recommend following?
SONGBIRD. hello, bub! sadly, i haven’t had the chance to interact with any bioshock blogs yet, however i’m sure there are amazing ones in the bioshock rp tag!
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MONUMENT ISLAND.
MONUMENT ISLAND WAS THE main landmark of columbia and a popular tourist attraction. before elizabeth was born, it served as a passage for immigrants that passed through when arriving at the city until it was changed to the welcome center. after elizabeth’s birth, citizens could board the gondola at the monument island gateway to visit the home of the miracle child. docking stations to the gateway were prominent in the town center, with locations at raffle square and shady lane.
IN SUMMER OF 1902, monument island was suddenly closed by zachary hale comstock. citizens speculated on the reason for the closure ranging from bad weather, disease, or supernatural haunting, ultimately putting their trust in the prophet's judgment. however, they could take comfort in viewing the tower peeking out from the clouds in the distance. workers were still able to take the sky-line to perform maintenance at monument island, but after several strange incidents, the entire site was deemed unsafe to enter. by the time booker dewitt arrived in 1912, the place was overgrown with vines and the interior was hastily abandoned.
MONUMENT TOWER.
BUILT BY ARCHITECTS UNDER the leadership of zachary hale comstock, columbia’s leader and elizabeth’s adoptive father, monument tower served as the iconic center of the floating city. the tower’s function was changed to have a religious purpose shortly after construction. according to the gospel of columbia, god delivered zachary a female heir after a miraculous seven day pregnancy by lady annabelle comstock. the child would be raised in monument tower until she eventually succeeds her father as ruler of columbia. however, the truth was much different than the story fed to blind citizens.
LADY COMSTOCK, OBLIVIOUS TO her husband’s work with alternate timelines and hence elizabeth’s origins, accused him of infidelity, refusing to let elizabeth be raised in her home. she was moved to the tower where it served as a gilded cage, protecting her from harm, as well as a way to control her and shape her into the prophet’s heir. when elizabeth’s powers began manifesting at the age of 13, the tower’s lower part was converted into a research facility, while the upper portion became the specimen observation area.
AS ELIZABETH’S POWERS GREW, access to monument tower and, eventually, the whole of monument island became restricted to the populace, with the exception of those allowed by zachary comstock. a massive device, the siphon, was also installed in the lower part of the tower to dampen elizabeth’s strength.
LOCATIONS.
LOBBY : PAST THE CHECK-IN ROTUNDA was the research area, where the signs indicated longer and longer quarantine periods from 12 to 72 to 168 hours, possibly due to elizabeth’s growing powers and her inability to control them properly. at the very end of the lobby’s hall was a diagram charting elizabeth’s growth, along with a display that showed three different objects : a teddy bear ( age 4 ), a poetry book ( age 11 ) and a cloth ( age 13 ). each object had a lever underneath which, when pulled, granted the observer the ability to see how elizabeth brought a different version of the teddy bear, the poetry book and the cloth from other timelines. this display was possible due to the siphon’s ability to recreate elizabeth’s use of her powers.
ROOMS : AFTER THE LOBBY, THERE were a series of rooms, most notably the photo lab, which displayed photos taken of elizabeth unbeknownst to her, even on instances where she was dressing up, and the screening room, which displayed projections of various activities elizabeth did on a daily basis, such as painting, dancing, singing, lock picking and cracking ciphers. there was also an adjoining operating room, used for storing elizabeth’s blood and hair samples.
OBSERVATION ROOMS : A SERIES OF CHAMBERS, separated from the public areas of the tower, were places where elizabeth actually lived. they consisted of several areas ( library, dining room, dressing room, bathroom, conservatory and bedroom ) which featured one-way viewing mirrors, as well as trackers beside each area that displayed elizabeth’s whereabouts.
CONSERVATORY : THE ROOM SERVED AS a place where elizabeth practiced her lock picking skills and cryptography. it had a large, oak table with lock picking sets and chalk on top of it and a blackboard in the corner of the room. beside the blackboard always resided polygraphia by johannes trithemius, one of the first books on cryptography.
BEDROOM : ADJACENT TO THE CONSERVATORY was elizabeth’s bedroom. it was characterized by simplicity, with only a bed, nightstand and a dresser. since music formed a central part of her life, various instruments and sheet music were often scattered around the room. it also contained a single gramophone and the walls were decorated with posters of yvette guilbert and the barbershop quartet.
DRESSING ROOM : TRAVERSING THE HALLWAYS LEAD to the dressing room. it contained a closet and a dresser, along with mannequins which displayed both dresses of elizabeth’s creation and dresses she pulled from different timelines. among them were pictures of paris pinned to the wall, as well as a postcard from the city and a painting of the eiffel tower.
DINING ROOM : SEEING THAT ELIZABETH NEVER ate meals meant for a proper, candlelight table, the dining room was converted into an ersatz painting room. childish doodles of her protector, the songbird, adorned the walls which contrasted the more serious sketches she made later in her life. an easel was placed in the corner of the room.
LIBRARY : ELIZABETH’S FAVORITE PLACE IN the tower, the library was an epitome of grandeur and every bookworm’s dream. the shelves, stretched all the way to the ceiling, covering each wall with books ranging from design to medicine. all of elizabeth’s knowledge comes from the ten thousand books in it. the library also contained a large window and a statue of her father, masking the instrument similar to a pan flute that was used for summoning songbird whenever it sensed someone was in elizabeth’s vicinity.
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current state of mind : my hair is SUPER long what tththe fuck
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━━━ WHAT’S YOUR SOCIAL LINK? repost, do not reblog.
i. THE HIEROPHANT : symbol education, authority, conservatism, obedience to rules and relationship with the divine. you matured enough, quite wise and logical. however, you are somehow associated and obsessed with the past.
ii. THE PRIESTESS : a symbol of hidden knowledge or other untapped power, wisdom, mystery and patience. usually quiet, reserved, and very intelligent. often modest and shy, and won't open up easily to others.
iii. THE JUSTICE : symbolizes a strict allegory of justice, objectivity, rationality and analysis. you are concerned with matters of fairness, and otherwise are very stoic individuals.
TAGGED BY : by @viduamor on my other blog. <3
TAGGING : @volchista, @tozire, @webfluid, @miatragodia, @umnaia, @astralord and you!
#character study tbt.#honestly ???#i think i nailed this bc#the priestess and the justice arcana match perfectly#with elizabeth during the course of bioshock infinite#and her during the events of burial at sea and the aftermath#i M 1!!!
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' i got plenty of money. '
WHAT IS THE VALUE of will when the spirit is found wanting? what is she if not a mirror to reflect the desires of a lonely heart? SHE HAS SEEN MANY ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS, many dusks and dawns, and each time was like the first. elizabeth saw beauty in normality, in pebbles, in mud, and she clung onto the coying tedium like a child to its mother.
❝ is that so? ❞ the songbird chirps, lips impishly curved, freedom coating each dimple in bliss and regained innocence. she points to the restaurant behind her, eyebrow arched. ❝ well, mister deep pockets, i suppose it won’t be a problem for you to take me out on a nice dinner and a few glasses of wine, right? ❞
LIZZIE SENTENCE MEME. @webfluid
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ELIZABETH COMSTOCK + rapture fashion.
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THEY UNDERESTIMATED YOU, elizabeth. people always did. so they isolated you, put you in a gilded cage cradled by clouds of cotton candy, kept you on a leash and pulled whenever you defied. they called you THE LAMB OF COLUMBIA, the seed of the prophet, but you were nothing more but a slave.
THOUGHTS OF SOLITUDE FADE underneath the warmth of sunshine upon ivory flesh. sorrow that no child should have withdraws its claws at the sight of her smile. a window to a world she has never seen melts beneath her footsteps, eyes the color of rain greedy for more. ❝ where are we going to next? i’m certain it will be as beautiful as this place! ❞
@tozire liked.
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THE GIRL IS THE flame that shall ignite the world.
#self promo tbt.#bioshock infinite rp#indie rp#elizabeth comstock rp#i'm half pleased with this#lsdjfkjsf#love me
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i’m not sure if this has been done before, but it needed to happen
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THE MIND OF THE subject will desperately try to create memories where none exist. she will desperately try to rip out the guilt that plagues her heart. in the end, she will succumb to salt and gunpowder, darkness will drown her irises : A GIRL BURIED IN SEA, scattered into infinity, both a martyr and a fool.
SHE ALLOWS AIR TO bloom in her lungs, for this is her last spring, as she struts down the street. to a passerby, she is silk and sugar, but to herself, she is atlas, carrying the weight of her sins. VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE. and she succumbed. guilt brought her to the girl-sleuth, so her knuckles firmly strike the door. she will not take no for an answer. ❝ nancy drew? i need your help. ❞
@sleuthis liked.
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