Black Gloves

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Black Gloves is a currently in-progress Bioshock alternate universe fanfiction by Poptart. The plot follows the adventures of less-than-intrepid writer Hester Allen as she struggles to survive in Rapture after the cruise ship she's on sinks. The first couple of chapters follow the plot of the first game, with Hester in place of Jack. Then she meets Jack. Then things get complicated. As in the first game, Atlas turns out to be Frank Fontaine, but...apparently the real Atlas isn't so dead after all. Now the Three Man Band are desperately looking for a way out, but their past might just catch up with them first.

It's in normal chapter format, occasionally interspersed with supplementary audio diary transcripts, and is set to be re-edited after completion.

You can read it on DeviantART, or Fanfiction.net.

This story contains the following tropes:

• Afraid of Needles: Hester, especially while in the Medical Pavilion.
• Alternate Timeline: Some of the events of Bioshock 2 happen a lot faster than they do in the normal timeline.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted oh, so hard. The combination of tons of water, tons of blood and near-constant running turns Hester into a damp, disheveled mess by about Chapter Two.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: AVA. FRIGGING. GLASS.
  • "She wanted to see tears in the eyes of everyone who had ever hurt her, and she wanted the personal satisfaction of being the one to put bullets through their hearts, and after that she wanted to live out the remainder of her life somewhere quiet, if she could."
• Break the Cutie: Ava Glass. And Hester, to a lesser extent.
• Dojikko: Both Hester and Jack.
• Driven to Suicide: Allegedly what happened to Hester's boyfriend James.
• Dynamic Entry: Ava in Fort Frolic, twice. The first time, she shoots a lock off a door to get to Cohen, and the second time, she appears on Fleet Hall's stage.
• Fandom Specific Plot: It starts off as an attempt at realistically writing the typical "Normal Girl Goes To Rapture" plot and mutates into a darker beast.
• Femme Fatale: Ava Glass, who played this kind of character so many times she eventually became it.
• For Want Of A Nail: If Hester had never existed, James Glass would never have died, the original plot of Bioshock would have played out, and life would have been better for just about everybody.
• Gallows Humor: Hester does this on occasion.
  • "It was either this or being eaten by sharks! Now that I think about it, perhaps the sharks were the better option!"
• Giggling Villain: Ava has a giggle fit while explaining to Sinclair what she did to Hester.
• I Should Write a Book About This: One of Hester's reactions to Rapture.
• Intrepid Reporter: Before coming to Rapture, Hester was a variation of this; she was a not-very-successful fiction writer whose day job was churning out filler articles for her local newspaper.
• Mind Screw: Just like in the game, Atlas turns out to be Frank Fontaine. And then it turns out there's another Atlas, who doesn't know anything about Hester or Jack at all, and just failed to save his family from being blown up.
• Nothing Is Scarier: To Hester, Ava when she's angry.
• Plucky Girl: Hester.
• The Reveal: There are two Atlases. One of them is Frank Fontaine, and one of them is actual!Atlas.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Ava Glass kills Sander Cohen, her former mentor, and nearly beats Hester to death.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Hester's weapon of choice.
• Shout-Out:
  • Hester's name is an obvious reference to The Scarlet Letter.
  • James Glass's family is one big homage to/combination of J. D. Salinger's Glass family and the titular family of The Royal Tenenbaums.
  • Ava, James' sister, was based on a combination of Bioshock 2's deleted character Ava Tate and the multiplayer character Blanche de Glace. Her full name, Ava Katherine, is a shout out to Ava Gardner and Katherine Hepburn, two actresses of the period.
    • In addition, James Glass's aspiration to become an architect is culled from The Fountainhead, as a nod to the material that Bioshock deconstructs.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Hester and her shotgun, although she has difficulty carrying it.
• Straight Man: Fontaine!Atlas.
• Survivor Guilt: Hester feels this about her dead "boyfriend", James, primarily because she has a complex about fixing people and believes she could have "saved" him. The only way she could have actually saved him was to leave him (and his fiancee) alone.
• Tall, Dark and Snarky: Jack Wynand, full stop.
• Theres No Place Like Home: Well, what else do you expect a girl who's just been dumped into an underwater city filled with crazy people to want?
• Tragic Monster: In spite of all that Ava Glass does, she can be seen as this. YMMV, though.
• Unreliable Narrator: Hester and Ava Glass both show signs of this.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Atlas /Fontaine
• Wangst: Invoked intentionally on Hester's part. She doesn't realize she's wangsting, because it's part of how she deals with James' death (their relationship didn't progress very far, and by all indication she was nothing more than a rebound), and her grasp on reality is somewhat shaky. Everyone else does, however, and she's told to stop complaining many a time.