ataraxion application.

[invigor]

P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Jen
OOC Journal: aurajen
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Older than 18.
Email + IM: aurajen@gmail.com, plurk: aurajen
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Loki Laufeyson

C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Booker DeWitt
Canon: Bioshock Infinite
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: After being drowned at the end of the game (but before the post-credits scene).
Number: 014, or if not available, RNG

Setting:

The world Booker comes from shares similarities to "our" world in the year 1912 (such as historical events and people, etc.), but is substantially different in important ways. The biggest difference being that there happens to be a massive floating city called Columbia that exists as the majority of the setting. The narrative also depends upon the idea that there are many alternate realities, and doesn't hesitate to explore them within Booker's story.

History:

Born on April 19, 1874, Booker led a fairly normal life until the age of sixteen, when he joined the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. During his service, one of his superior officers "accused" Booker of possessing Native American heritage; wishing to dispel this rumor and the stigma that went along with it at the time (even though it is hinted through the voxophones in the game that he does have Sioux blood in him, with a small enough generation gap to even speak it), Booker was particularly cruel to any Native Americans he fought in battle. This disposition climaxed at the Wounded Knee Massacre, where scalping his victims and burning them alive were not above and beyond him. He was nicknamed "The White Injun" courtesy of his comrades, and not only were the rumors of his heritage dispelled, but he was seen as a war hero to his fellow cavalry members.

And Booker himself pretty much became overcome with guilt and scarred for life.

After the battle, he didn't consider himself a hero at all for his actions. Instead, Booker was wracked with guilt, and sought a way to rid himself of the shame he carried. It wasn't long after when he attended a river baptism, in which the attending preacher offered to cleanse him of his sins. However, before the baptism could be completed, Booker changed his mind, cynically (or, perhaps, rightfully) stating that his sins couldn't simply be washed away by a "dunk in the river". He leaves and continues on with his life, a very different sort of man than he would have been if he had chosen to be baptized.

When Booker was eighteen, his wife/lover (canon does not state which) became pregnant with his child. Any joy this occasion might have brought him was deflated when during childbirth, she died giving birth to his daughter, Anna DeWitt. Instead of being emboldened by the tough times and wanting to do right by his daughter, Booker only saw the culminating pressures of having to raise a child as a single father; this, coupled with his unresolved state of mind concerning his past, led him to drink and gamble in order to cope. He later spent time employed as a Pinkerton Agent, but was discharged on account of being too extreme in his methods of getting the job done. He managed to set up an office for himself in New York working as a private investigator, though his drinking and gambling problems still plagued him. And, as such problems often do, Booker began to experience financial issues, adding a large debt to the many list of things he was already struggling with at the time.

It was only about a year after all of this when Booker was approached by a man named Robert Lutece. He came with an offer from someone called Father Comstock, "Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt." If Booker were to make the choice to give up Anna to this man whom he didn't even know, his financial slate would be wiped clean. Somehow managing to convince himself that this would be totally okay to do (perhaps thinking that this man could probably raise her better than he ever could), he hastily accepts the offer. He sold his daughter, and handed her over to Robert, though it wasn't long after that when he immediately began to regret his choice. He pursues the man, and is led to an alleyway where he finds Robert, Comstock, his child, and a strange portal. Though Booker did his best to wrestle Anna away, both Comstock and Robert Lutece managed to escape through the portal. In a heartbreaking moment, Anna reached out to Booker as she was taken to the other side; the portal closed around her pinky finger and severed it, the only part of her that was to remain in Booker's world. A pretty morbid memento of his actions, if you ask me.

Needless to say, Booker's drinking, gambling, and depression went downhill from there. He closed off the door leading to Anna's room, and painfully branded the initials "AD" into his right hand, so that he'd never forget the awful failure of a father that he was.

Fast forward to about twenty years later, and Booker is once again approached by Robert Lutece. This time, the man had begun to feel guilty about his part in taking Booker's daughter away from him, and offered him a chance to get her back. All he had to do was to step through the portal in his office, very reminiscent of the portal he saw in the alleyway when he lost Anna. Booker accepts and steps through the portal, entering a different reality altogether. As a side-effect of doing so, however, his mind becomes dazed and confused, and struggles to consolidate his memories into an accurate whole. When he becomes coherent again, Booker believes that he had been tasked with the assignment to bring back a girl named Elizabeth from the floating city of Columbia, thus paying off his gambling debts. ("Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt", the phrase he now remembers as a job description rather than something told to him twenty years ago.) He is brought to a rowboat by Robert and a woman that is his "sister" named Rosalind (but actually his alternate self in a different reality), and they bring him to a small island with a lighthouse.

In the lighthouse, Booker finds a small shuttle that rockets him up to Columbia, a massive city in the clouds. He arrives in a Welcome Center, where he finds he must be baptized before he can properly enter. He begrudgingly accepts, and the priest performing the baptism nearly drowns him. Booker blacks out, and has a prophetic dream about New York burning down all around him. When he awakens, he begins to explore Columbia, learning that there's a fair going on nearby to celebrate the anniversary of the city. He makes his way through the city, occasionally being helped by Robert and Rosalind (appearing out of thin air) who make it a point to guide and offer him advise. (Later, you learn that they are quantum physicists that are responsible for the floating of the city of Columbia and the pioneers of trans-dimensionsal travel.)

On his way to a raffle, Booker learns that Comstock leads everything religious and political (having established a group called the Founders) in Columbia, and that Elizabeth was to be found in a tower in Monument Island. He also learns that Comstock has told everyone of a "False Shepherd" with the initials "AD" branded on the back of his hand, who will lead the "Lamb of Columbia" (Elizabeth) astray. When he reaches the raffle, he finds that there's a darker side to this colorful, idealized city -- an interracial couple is brought onto stage to be stoned to death by the crowd. Before any of this can unravel, however, an officer notices the "AD" on Booker's hand. The man tries to kill him and Booker fights back and escapes, which leads to a city-wide man hunt in order to find him.

Undeterred, Booker continues his search for Elizabeth, going through residential areas and then boarding an airship to reach Monument Island. Comstock makes an appearance and attempts to burn down the vessel, all the while pointing out Booker's faults and failures. Booker escapes, and manages to reach the island. It is there he finds a large laboratory, with a living space in its center where Elizabeth has been monitored all her life. Making his way there, he finds out the reason why she has been observed and studied is because of her abilities to create "tears" that lead into other alternate realities. Trying to reach her, Booker not-so-gracefully falls through the ceiling of her library and startles her, and is pelted by books. He calms her down and explains that he is there to help her escape her tower, in which Elizabeth agrees to, having been forbidden to leave her entire life. As they try to escape they are attacked by a large bird-like creature called Songbird, Elizabeth's guardian and jailer, though they manage to get away.

Booker convinces Elizabeth to go with him, using her desire to one day see Paris as a bargaining chip; he says that they will take an airship away from Columbia and to Paris, though this is just a lie and he fully intends to bring her back to New York instead. Elizabeth agrees and along the way, she explains her abilities further to Booker. Though he's obviously not sure what to think of them at first, he rids himself of his hesitation soon after he realizes that her abilities are useful to him in a fight.

They reach the Aerodome, but find it has been powered down, likely as a consequence of the entire city trying to hamper Booker's escape. Looking for a power source, they realize that obtaining the vigor Shock Jockey is their best bet. (Vigors are vials that grant the user the abilities to use different powers. In this case, to generate electricity. More on this in the "Abilities" section of the application.) Entering the Hall of Heroes to find it, they come across Booker's old war comrade, Cornelius Slate. Having been disillusioned by Comstock's lies about his presence on Wounded Knee and how he has dismissed the soliders' efforts, Booker and Elizabeth find that they are going to have to fight their way through the hall against a slightly insane old man in order to get what they need. When they grab Shock Jockey from Slate, Booker has the choice of killing or sparing the man. Booker spares him, and is called a "tin man" by Slate; Elizabeth asks what all he was referring to, unaware of Booker's part in the Wounded Knee Massacre. He brushes it off and refuses to fully answer her questions, and they continue onwards to the Aerodome.

When they find the airship, Elizabeth realizes that Booker doesn't plan on taking her to Paris at all. He tries to comfort her... but angry and not wanting to go somewhere against her will, she knocks him out with a wrench. Hooray.

When he wakes up, he finds that his airship is now under the command of the Vox Populi (an anti-Founder group and generally speaking a movement against Comstock and his favoritism towards the well-off and white masses) and their leader, Daisy Fitzroy. She offers him back the airship on one condition: that he steals her weapons from Fink Manufacturing, a large factory that makes just about everything, for her cause. Having no other choice, Booker agrees and makes his way to Finkton. He finds Elizabeth there, and she flees from him, calling him a liar and a thug. Their actions draw the attention of those looking for them, and Booker is attacked and then saved by Elizabeth. Admitting that he's the only way for her to leave the city at all, she agrees to follow him again despite her irritation.

As they progress, Booker realizes that they cannot achieve their goal of obtaining munitions in this reality due to various problems in their path. They do realize, though, that Elizabeth can open a tear to a reality where such issues do not exist, and that they can obtain the weapons there. They do so, only to find themselves in a reality where the Vox Populi have taken over the city in a bloody rebellion, and Booker himself had died a martyr for their cause. Seeing Booker alive, they attack him, claiming that he's an imposter and once again Booker finds himself getting shot at and having to escape to survive. They find the Daisy Fitzroy of this reality, whom is intent on murdering anyone that gets in the way of their cause, even children of the Founders. Attempting to stop her from committing such an act, Booker distracts her while Elizabeth sneaks in behind her and stabs her in the back, killing her. Shocked at what she's just done, Elizabeth flees to the airship and Booker follows, trying to comfort her. Before they can decide on their next destination, Songbird attacks them once more.

Their ship crash lands in the Emporia district of the city, and Elizabeth and Booker once again run into the Lutece twins, who tell them that there is a flute inside the Comstock House that can control Songbird. Upon reaching it, they find that they don't have entry access, and require the proper fingerprints. Realizing that Lady Comstock (Comstock's deceased wife and Elizabeth's supposed mother) burial place is nearby, Elizabeth gets the idea that they can use her fingerprints for entry. They reach her body, which is preserved in a glass coffin, and Elizabeth is determined to retrieve her hand; Booker asks why she is so ready to do so when it's the body of her own mother and Elizabeth says that she has no fondness towards the woman, who kept her locked up in a tower and showed her no affection whatsoever. When they attempt to open the coffin, it triggers one of Comstock's traps, which siphons a bit of Elizabeth's power from her and uses it to "revive" a nasty version of the sprit of Lady Comstock, called the Siren.

The Siren departs and Elizabeth and Booker follow her around, realizing that she is leading them to various tears. Through these tears, the two find out that Elizabeth is not Lady Comstock's true daughter, but rather a daughter stolen from another reality. The Lutece twins had created a machine to view tears into other worlds, which Comstock used to his advantage. Being able to do so, he called himself a "prophet", and furthered Columbia's progression using the inspired science of various other realities. However, the side-effect of using this machine on a constant basis was that it made one sterile, and thus Comstock had to find an heir to carry on his legacy after he died; one that he pulled from an alternate universe. And although this was the truth of the matter, Lady Comstock did not believe it -- she thought that the Elizabeth was the bastard child of Comstock and Rosalind, and therefore she shut her in a tower and wanted nothing to do with her. Regardless of what Lady Comstock thought, the fact that she knew it was not Comstock's true heir and held contempt towards this idea was a threat to Comstock himself. Afraid that Lady Comstock would reveal this to all of Columbia, he had her killed and blamed it on Daisy Fitzroy. Later, he rearranged the death of the Luteces, under the guise of the trans-dimensional machine "malfunctioning". And malfunction it did, and the Luteces disappeared; but in truth, the plan wasn't a complete success. The Luteces didn't die, but rather now existed in all planes of realities at once, which would explain why they would appear to Booker out of thin air, and their relatively strange comments they were prone to making.

All of this, of course, is a surprise to Elizabeth and to Booker, who still had not regained his true memories. After a final confrontation with the Siren, they are able to enter Comstock House. Upon entry, they are again attacked by Songbird and Booker is thrown through a nearby building like a ragdoll. Songbird closes in to kill him, but Elizabeth steps in, offering to return to Comstock as long it spares Booker. Songbird agrees and takes Elizabeth back to Comstock. Booker recovers and, angry and determined, pursues Songbird to get Elizabeth back.

When he crosses the bridge to Comstock House, he finds himself in a strange, heavy fog. The weather changes, which Booker notes as strange because it's the wrong season for snow. When he enters, everything around him (from research notes, to Elizabeth's own audio dairies) suggest that many years have passed; that Elizabeth had been subjected to physical torture and mental reconditioning so that she would be more malleable to Comstock's wishes. Booker is confused as to how this could possibly happen as he had just seen her not long ago, but he presses onward. As he does, the situation seems more and more dire. It seems as if Elizabeth had given into the brainwashing, and followed through with Comstock's desire to "cleanse" the world below Columbia with fire. (Booker's prophetic dream from the beginning of the game, anyone?) When he finally finds Elizabeth, he finds that she's an old woman who has aged decades. She shows him New York city in 1984, under attack by Columbia itself, the entire city engulfed in flames. Stunned, Booker says that he was trying to rescue her, unbelieving that Elizabeth would give up on him. She replies with the revelation that he did try, many times, but Songbird always stopped him. Regretting how things turned out in the end, despite her reconditioning by Comstock, Elizabeth decided to step in and bring him here, to give Booker and her younger self a better chance of changing things. She gives Booker a card to give to her younger self and sends him back to his proper time, inside Comstock House, so that he will not have to deal with Songbird.

He can hear Elizabeth's screaming, and he follows them until he's in the center of a large laboratory, being tended to by scientists. She is hooked up to a large siphon that drains her power (and likely is quite painful, if her pleading to make it stop is any indication), and Booker manages to shut down the contraption. Doing so allows Elizabeth's power to return to her and she kills the scientists. Booker releases her from her restraints and she says that she intends to put a stop to Comstock by killing him; Booker says that there's no need, he plans to do that himself.

They pursue the man to his ship, the Hand of the Prophet. Booker confronts Comstock, and the latter blames Booker for everything that Elizabeth has been through, and demands for him to tell her what happened to her pinky. This statement causes an outburst in Booker, and in anger he smashes the man's head in on a nearby fountain. Shocked at his reaction, Elizabeth asks what Comstock meant by his statement; Booker says he doesn't know why he reacted that way, though Elizabeth looks skeptical and points out his bleeding nose. (Another side-effect of the bleeding memories caused by trans-dimensional travel.)

The two realize that they need to leave the city through a tear, but the only way to do so would be to remove the siphon that still remains in Monument Island. Elizabeth finds the flute that they need to control Songbird, called the Whistler, after realizing that the card her older self from the future gave her is a set of instructions on what notes to play to accomplish this. They use the Whistler to control Songbird and destroy the siphon, but this effort causes the flute to break and the creature turns on the both of them.

However, Elizabeth's power is completely unbridled now that the siphon is destroyed, and she transports herself, Booker, and Songbird to a completely different reality altogether -- they reappear in the underwater city of Rapture, with the two of them within the safety of a building, and Songbird out in the deep waters on the other side, seen from a large window where they stand. Songbird dies from the water pressure, and Booker asks what has just happened. She explains to him that with the siphon gone, she can now see the infinite number of possibilities that exist across all realities, and can move freely between them. With this revelation, she tells him that Comstock is not truly dead, because in other realities he still exists. She says she has something she wants to show him.

She takes him through various tears which reveal Booker's true past. He relives the choice to give up his daughter, the revelation of Robert and Rosalind Lutece's part in all of this, and why he went to Columbia in the first place. His memories finally come together in the way they're supposed to, and he remembers that Elizabeth is his daughter Anna.

Likely overwhelmed with all sorts of emotions, the one that wins out is anger towards Comstock. He tells Elizabeth that they need to finish the job and destroy him completely so that he no longer exists at all; she says that there are still things he needs to see.

She brings him back in time to his river baptism, the one he rejected all those years ago. He asks why he's here, what this has to do with anything -- Elizabeth reveals to him that in one reality, he did not reject the baptism, but accepted it. In that reality, he was "reborn" as a new man: Zachary Hale Comstock. It's then that Booker realizes that the only way to truly "kill" Comstock is to destroy him before he can make the decision to become Comstock.

Which means, of course, killing himself.

With no real time to digest this information or even let the shock settle in, he accepts what needs to be done. Multiple Elizabeths appear around him from all the different realities, and they drown Booker in his new baptism. One by one, the other Elizabeths begin to disappear until only the original is left.

And here is where Booker will awaken with a breathing tube down his throat, surrounded in alien fluid -- a whole different sense of drowning altogether.

Personality:

"What if you woke up one day and realized you
didn't like what you chose?"

Booker is a man that is plagued by his past. From the atrocities committed at Wounded Knee, to selling daughter to clear a debt, to the second-hand culpability he now possesses due to his awareness of his potential for being an awful human being, courtesy of Comstock -- all of this makes him a man that is burdened with guilt. Throughout the majority of his life, Booker has known that he's not a great person and he doesn't try to pretend otherwise. When he's offered a baptism for a chance to "cleanse" away his sins, Booker ends up denying it outright; he states that a dunk in the river isn't going to change what he's done and magically make it all go away. This moment, especially, is pivotal to his character; whereas his alternate self chooses to be baptised and therefore renewed as a self-proclaimed religious and "enlightened" man, Booker makes the choice to live with his actions. He can't forgive himself so easily, and therefore taking the easy way out doesn't sit well with him. It's fair to say that Booker is tougher on himself than he is on others, and finds questionable ways to cope; from branding the initials A.D. into his right hand so that he doesn't ever forget about his crime of giving Anna away, to drinking himself to excess.

This decision to live acknowledging his past is what moulds his character into what it is presently. Booker is a man with a hardened exterior; he isn't one to start talking about his emotions on a whim, and sometimes has trouble expressing them when he needs to. (With the exception of traumatic or extreme events, and that usually shows itself as an outburst of anger. More on that later.) A lot of this difficulty comes from the fact that there's a lot of stuff he just doesn't want to talk about; even though he's accepted the things he's done, they're not subjects he usually wants to dredge up just for the hell of it. This isn't to say that he won't share his past with anyone at all, but it would have to be a very slow and gradual transition. Even during the game, while escorting Elizabeth around, Booker is hesitant to share anything about himself with her; as he grows to trust his charge, he begins to open up a little more.

His view on life is one that can be called cynical, though undoubtedly if someone told him that, he'd merely respond that he's a realist. This is true to a degree, but his outlook is also based on his experience with knowing how awful human beings can be and, more importantly, his experience with knowing how awful he had been making some of the decisions he did in the past. Yet cynical or otherwise, Booker usually offers accurate insight on the situations surrounding him. For instance, while Elizabeth first reacts to Columbia with wonder, Booker has trouble seeing past the city's extreme ideologies behind the apparent utopian façade. An example is when Elizabeth comments that a large percentage of Columbia's inhabitants' income go to Comstock. Booker then responds sarcastically (and a little ironically, you find out later), saying that he needs to get into the prophet business, too. He's a down-to-earth man, wanting to see things for what they actually are, as opposed to blindly accepting anything at face value. And in a city smothered with propaganda and really dubious paradigms, this trait is definitely an advantage on his part.

"One thing I've learned;
if you don't draw first, you don't get to draw at all."

It's also fair to note that Booker is a man who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. He isn't unnecessarily cruel or heartless after realizing his transgressions in the past (in fact, quite the opposite as many of his emotions constantly plague him), but he does not hesitate to be morally ambiguous in order to get something done, preferably quick and efficiently. He's a man who has killed, many times over; against those in Columbia he acted in self-defense, but he does not so much as flinch when he does so. At first it's all for very mercenary reasons, but as the narrative continues, it becomes for the sake of protecting Elizabeth. And a protective man he can be, to those he cares about or becomes close enough with. There's so very little left that he finds precious in his life that he will go to any length to shield them, to fix them, to make them right. And because he does not want to lose these things, he can and is willing to go to extreme measures to make sure nothing goes awry.

Sometimes this resolution manifests in outbursts anger, especially during trying moments of frustration when everything is about to fall apart, he's feeling threatened, or wronged. When he meets Comstock face-to-face for the first time, he's met with accusations and insults. Accordingly, he smashes the man's skull in. After everything that had happened to him (and everything that Comstock put him and Elizabeth through), he had reached his breaking point, revealing that behind that thick skin, he does indeed have one. And when the dam breaks, you should probably head for high ground.

All this being said, Booker has his moments of kindness and thoughtfulness. In general, he wishes to do good -- partly for the sake of his own sense of atonement (a long and complicated process for him) for the deeds he's committed in the past, and partly because, despite what he thinks of himself, at his core he's not a rotten person. If he sees someone in need, he will stop to ask them what's wrong and help them. He has on overall willingness to do good, and in the more mundane moments in life are when this willingness is likely to shine through. The very fact that he feels so awful about his past and the things he finds out in Columbia is testament to the fact that he does carry a conscience, so much so that the weight of it can be a burden to him. These moments of thoughtfulness for others, though subtle and maybe not immediately apparent when they manifest, are always sincere.

It's also good to note that Booker does come from the early 1900s, so a lot of the technologically advanced items he may encounter are going to be very foreign and possibly frustrating to him. Thankfully, Columbia itself was a fantastically advanced city for its time, so the Tranquility won't be a complete culture shock for him. Maybe.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:

Physical Abilities:
Physically, Booker is an average human man. While he's in fairly good shape, he does not possess superhuman strength or stamina. Hit him and he bruises, shoot him and he bleeds. He's a good marksman and is familiar with a variety of guns (from his era, at least), and knows how to maintain them.

Other Abilities and their Limitations:
Within Columbia, however, Booker took advantage of vigors -- bottles of gene-changing, god-knows-what concoction that grants its user special powers -- and has a variety of spiffy abilities at his disposal because of them. The only noticeable side-effect from using these are a) the really trippy hallucinations one experiences upon first drinking them and b) the temporary, sometimes involuntary physical changes that occur in the affected hand that primarily uses them. These powers are listed below (as are their in-game limitations):

Bucking Bronco
-Ability: Sends a rush of energy directly in front of the user, also has the ability to "travel" over cover. Anyone caught in it is levitated for a short period of time, rendering them defenseless. Can also be set as a stationary trap with same effect.
-Limitation: Half normal levitation time.

Charge
-Ability: Causes Booker to rush at an enemy at a high speed, damaging and stunning them.
-Limitation: Half power.

Devil's Kiss
-Ability: Ability to conjure up fire, and toss explosive fireballs at an enemy. Can also be set as a stationary trap with same effect.
-Limitation: No explosive effect, just fire that burns.

Murder of Crows
-Ability: Summons a murder of crows on an enemy, dealing damage and distracting them from attacking. Can also be set as a stationary trap with same effect.
-Limitation: No... crows. At all. This one is relatively defunct, though his hand will still change form, sporting a few black feathers and long, black talons. You could probably stab people with them if you were close enough, I suppose.

Possession
-Ability: Turns machines and/or people to the caster's side, causing them to fight other aggressive enemies for a temporary amount of time. May cause machines to simply be more receptive to the user in general.
-Limitation: No longer works on people. Might occasionally work on machines, though nothing game-changing.

Return to Sender
-Ability: Creates a shield in front of Booker that temporarily block gunfire. Can "absorb" all force taken and release it back to the attacker.
-Limitation: Half duration time.

Shock Jockey
-Ability: Shocks the target with electricity. Can also activate objects that require electricity.
-Limitation: Half power.

Undertow
-Ability: Throws all enemies in front of Booker back with water, knocking them down. Can also pull them forward and hold them in the air temporarily.
-Limitation: Cannot hold enemies in air, half power.

NOTE: Vigors do not have unlimited use. Booker could only use a few at a time before he would have to let each power recharge. This would likely take several hours. (As a game mechanic, Booker recharges his vigors using "salts", which can be found in food/drink or just vials of the stuff. To make this a more viable aspect to work within a game, I would simply like to have it recharge over time as stated above.)

Weaknesses:
Booker's prominent weaknesses are those of the emotional nature. As likely mentioned several times in the entirety of this application, Booker suffers from a lot of guilt, and doesn't ever allow himself to think too highly of his character. Some of this may manifest in self-deprecation, in the form of off-handed comments here and there.

Barring that, Booker also has a bit of a temper if the right buttons are pushed. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, he often acts on emotion and impulse instead of thinking things through first.

Inventory:

His clothes
Sky-Hook
Broadsider Pistol (AKA a Mauser C96)
Hunstman Carbine (AKA an M1 Carbine)
An empty bottle of the Murder of Crows vigor

Appearance:

Booker is a tall man, standing at 6' 1". He has brown hair, a little bit of a five o'clock shadow, and green eyes. His character model looks like this. He has the initials "AD" carved (and consequentially, scarred) into top of his right hand, though that itself is covered with a larger, fresher scar in the middle of said hand -- the consequence of having a knife put through it, in-game.

HOWEVER, since the game is played from a first-person perspective and therefore you do not really ever get to see Booker's face, I will be using a PB for many of Booker's icons. In that context, Booker will be portrayed by Jon Hamm, who looks pretty much like Booker anyway IMO.

Age: 38

AU Clarification: N/A

S A M P L E S
Log Sample:

The heavy, familiar fog of liquor in his system makes it seem like he's looking at everything from underwater, but the pain is as sharp and clear as day. He drops the pocket knife, not caring where it lands; it clatters on the wooden flooring, only a few feet away from where Booker is seated.

He holds up his right hand against the dusty light, and though it only proves to provide a poor silhouette, he can still see the bright red marks now made home on his skin.

A D

The lines are a little sloppy, not exactly straight in some places; blame it on the empty bottle of whiskey, blame it on a graceless left hand. It didn't matter. It was simple enough, clear enough, two plain letters, legible even when fresh and seeping a little at the edges with red. He grimaces, but it's not at the pain, and it's not at the sight of what he's just done to himself.

He grimaces at his new brand because it stares right back at him, it screams at him, louder than anything in this small, goddamn excuse for an office. That'll be his scarlet letter. That'll be his public and personal reminder of his greatest failure; when the sun is out and the day is clear and he feels like he wants to smile, those letters on his hand will remind him that he doesn't deserve to laugh or feel good about anything anymore. Because a man who sells his daughter to a stranger to clear gambling debts, well, what the hell kind of man is that?

He scoffs, clenching his hand into a fist. Torn skin stretches uncomfortably and it burns a little more, but all he cares to do is remark to himself out loud.

"Ain't no man at all."

With an exhale, he drops his arm to his side. He'll just let the blood dry for now -- he can worry about cleaning it tomorrow.

Comms Sample:

[When the feed goes live on the network, Booker isn't sure if this is video or voice or what. Hell, he doesn't even know if he's holding the thing the right way; he's seen strange technology on Columbia -- amazing technology, even -- but this was in a different realm altogether.

So there's a long moment of silence before he clears his throat, figuring he might as well say something if it is running.]

I, uh -- [He hesitates, starting over. Stay calm. He may not know where the hell he is, he may have a million other things going on in his mind right now, but he still needs answers. Treat it like a voxophone, or something similar.]

Name's Booker DeWitt, and I'm not gonna waste anyone's time. I just need to know if anyone's seen a girl recently. Blue and white dress, short brown hair. Her name's -- [Anna. A pause, a brief hesitation as he sets his jaw and then continues] --Elizabeth.

[Okay, that's it then. How do you turn it off, now? There's another long pause as he figures out how to sign off.]

Much apprecia-

[FEED END]