BioShock/Sinking City: Jackabeth Family Headcanons
These are my headcanons for the Jackabeth family: Jack Jolene, Elizabeth DeWitt Jolene, their five adopted daughters (Sally, Masha, Leta, Annabelle, and Daisy), their biological son Booker, and of course, Brigid Tenenbaum.
Having grown up in Rapture, almost every former Little Sister had agoraphobia - the fear of open spaces. Sally, Masha, Leta, Annabelle, and Daisy had Jack and Liz to help them adapt to the surface world and not hide away within the rooms of the Grimhaven Bay Lighthouse. Tenenbaum made sure to aid the orphanage’s staff in caring for the 35 new arrivals and helping them to adjust.
One of the games that the girls loved to play with Jack and Liz was Hide-and-Seek. However, their variant had Jack or Liz using their different flavors of invisibility to hide in plain sight, with the rest of them being the Seekers. Jack’s Camouflage tonic required him to stay completely still, so finding him wasn’t as hard as trying to find Liz. Her Peeping Tom plasmid allowed her to move around and remain invisible, making for Hide-and-Seek games where she remained unfound until the end of the game, or until she ran out of EVE.
Their all-time favorite show is The Twilight Zone. Jack and Liz both had their lives turned completely upside-down and then thrust into some of the strangest, most bizarre, and horrible situations that anyone has ever been in, just like the characters in the show. The girls enjoy watching because their parental figures do. Also, Liz has a secret crush on Rod Serling (which Jack completely knows about).
As soon as the girls are old enough, Jack and Liz teach them how to shoot guns. After everything they’ve been through, none of them want to be without the means of defending themselves. Especially in a city like Oakmont....
When the girls became old enough to date, Jack convinces Liz to “chaperone” - that is, to follow them while invisible and make sure that their date doesn’t try anything. Liz would be annoyed by this, if Oakmont wasn’t infested with inhuman monsters that could occasionally take on Human form.
After a bunch of close calls where she’s almost found out “chaperoning”, Liz begins to wonder if this is all necessary. She and Jack almost have a fight about it. He manages to convince her to do it just one more time; she agrees, and that’s the night she has to step in to protect her youngest daughter. Not from a monster, but from the date attempting to rape her.
While Liz got their daughter home, Jack contacted Charles about how to get rid of a body - one that was still alive, to be exact. A few hours later, the would-be rapist woke up in the basement of the Department of Medicine at Oakmont University, just in time to see Jack flip a switch and run upstairs, fast. An inhuman roar echoed through the room, followed immediately afterwards by very human screaming.
Just as Jack and Liz come to see Charles as something of a father figure (Liz especially), the girls come to see him as a grandfather figure. His scary stories are the best! The Jolene family becomes somewhat of an extension of the Reed family over the years, with Charles’ kids being aunt and uncle figures.
When Booker comes along, the girls, having now entered their teenage years, are enamored with him. Liz is happy to have had a child, one of the many dreams she gave up after the events in Columbia. Jack is glad to not be the only guy in the family anymore.
When Booker is about six years old, one of Tenenbaum’s theories turns out to be right: He has inherited his parent’s plasmids and gene tonics, all of them.
Booker is frightened out of his wits by all the things he can do now: Shooting fire, lightning, ice, and bees out of his hands, suddenly becoming faster and stronger, turning invisible, etc. It’s too much for him. Thankfully, he’s got a very good support system: Three mentors to help him with his powers(Jack, Liz, and, at this point, Eleanor Lamb), someone who knows what’s going on genetically (Tenenbaum), and a gaggle of loving sisters.
When puberty begins to come up Booker, Liz takes him aside and impresses that he is to NOT take advantage of his Possession or Peeping Tom plasmids when it comes to the opposite sex. She is very clear on this, and thankfully, Booker takes it to heart.
Thoughts? I will be happy to share more if I come up with them.