(no subject)
PLAYER
NAME/NICKNAME: Thleen
AGE: 19
PERSONAL LJ: ankeelv2
TIMEZONE: EST!
EMAIL ADDRESS: disconewsie@gmail.com
IM SCREENNAME AND SERVICE: disco newsie (plurk is "ankeel")
CHARACTER
NAME: Jack Kelly
AGE: 17
FANDOM/MEDIUM: Newsies! A movie and a play; I'll be playing him primarily from the play version, with icons from the movie.
CANON PULL-POINT: The very end.
ABILITIES: None!
CHARACTER BACKGROUND: Jack Kelly began life in a normal-- if impovrished-- household. He had a younger brother, a mother, and a father; times were hard, but they were happy enough. Growing up, he'd had been taught that survival was to be his watchword, legality be damned. As a result of that lesson, the boy had been imprisoned more times than he could count in a place called The Refuge-- a dank prison made specifically for the streetrat children of New York City. The intent was to reform them through Christian charity; however, under the rule of the corrupt warden, Snyder, the rat-infestedprison was simply a place for them to starve and be beaten.
After escaping the Refuge at age eight in a feat that would quickly become legend, Jack found his mother dead. His father, long since imprisoned, was of no help, and so Jack found himself and his brother orphaned without a penny to his name. After a failed attempt to head out west with his brother that resulted in his sibling's death, he decided to stay in New York, taking a job as a newsie (one of several hundred boys, made up of the "poor orphans and runaways" of the city, who sold the newspapers for a penny per paper). To anyone who asked, Jack was merely biding his time until his parents, who were out west in Santa Fe looking for a new home, sent for him.
Through the years, Jack quickly became an unofficial leader for the newsies, viewed both as a hero (because of his daring-- and exaggerated-- escape from the Refuge) and an older brother figure. His brash and charismatic personality won him popularity and friends, but none got too close to him until he met newcomer David Jacobs.
David, a brand-new newsie, had only come to work for a short period of time: until his father's arm healed. Until then, however, he was stuck and lost in this new world, one whose rules he didn't understand and customs were foreign to him. Jack, seeing this, quickly took David under his wing as his new "partner" and taught him the basics of newsie lifestyle: number one being how to lie, or "improve the truth", as Jack called it, in order to sell more papers. (In a particularly defining line of dialogue, David disgustedly tells Jack that "my father taught us not to lie," to which Jack plainly replies, "Yeah, well, my father taught me not to starve, so we both got an education.") And it is David who, weeks later, when the price of newspapers is raised by, suggested striking.
Jack quickly seized upon this idea and began to rally the newsies, encouraging them despite having little to no idea on how to actually lead a strike. Although difficult at times (most were skeptical and more willing to just pay the extra dime, especially when the going got rough), between Jack's charismatic personality and David's intelligence, they managed to spark a citywide strike. A rally was planned then, one that would bring all the newsboys together, one that no newspaper could possibly ignore. Things seemed on the verge of success--
--until Jack was recaptured by Snyder and brought to the head of the leading newspaper company, The World: Joseph Pulitzer, who had been desperately trying to suppress the strike, as it was killing his business. Pulitzer, hiding his panic and desperation, offered Jack an easy deal: simply go the the rally and speak against it. Jack would get paid, the strike-- without the support of its charasmatic leader-- would shut down, and everyone would be happy.
But Jack saw through Pulitzer's tactic, realizing that it was only because the tycoon was so terrified of the strike and its effects on his business that he was offering Jack this deal. So Pulitzer played his final ace in the hole: David. He told Jack that he could-- and would-- have David arrested and thrown into the Refuge. Jack, having been in and out of it countless times, knew that David wouldn't survive the tough, cruel lifestyle that was needed in the prison. With that thought-- coupled with the terrifying weight of having the lives and well being of several hundred young children on his hands-- Jack made his decision.
He emerged at the rally in full view of all the newsies-- and David-- loudly proclaiming how they couldn't win the strike, how they ought to just give up and accept the new price. Ignoring the protests of betrayal and rage coming from his old friends, Jack took his money and fled.
This betrayal, however, barely lasted. Jack was soon found by both David and Katherine-- a reporter covering the story with whom Jack had slowly been falling in love-- and convinced that giving up wasn't the right thing to do. Within a day the newsies had gotten their leader back.
The two boys and Katherine quickly made a plan. A few days earlier, Katherine had written an article detailing the cruelties of child labor, discussing just how badly off newsies-- and children all over the city-- really were. With a few illustrations from Jack, their plan was to publish the article themselves, showing the city what things were really like.
Added at the bottom of the article was a note: there would be a rally the next day, to show Pulitzer-- and the entire city-- that the children were going on strike until the prices were lowered again. Because Jack, while working for Pulitzer, had been housed underneath the printingpress for The World, he had quick and easy access to a free printing press: an advantage he wasted no time in using. Jack, David and Katherine, aided by the newsie strikers, quickly printed hundreds of copies of the article and spread it around the city.
The next day at the rally, it seemed as if the entire city showed up: thousands of children gathered and were protesting outside of Pulitzer's office. The man quickly summoned Jack to his office, where the boy negotiated Pulitzer until they came to an agreement: the price would be lowered by half a cent and the newspaper offices would be forced to buy back any papers the children couldn't sell. And, as a bonus, Pulitzer mentioned he was impressed by Jack's illustrations in the paper, and wondered if he would be willing to illustrate a few political cartoons for the World.
Triumphant, Jack left and announced the news to the rest of the children, who celebrated. As an added bonus to the victory, the governor of New York had read the article and realized what conditions at the Refuge truly were like. The governor (none other than Teddy Roosevelt) quickly shut down the children's prison, which meant Jack no longer had to be on the run.
All was perfect.
Except...
Jack, finally having the means, asked the governor if he would be willing to give Jack a lift to the train station, where he would finally leave for Santa Fe. David and Katherine watched, upset, as Jack left once and for all. But lo and behold, not before the day was out did Jack return. After a long talk with Mr. Roosevelt, Jack agreed that he "still [had] things to do". And besides, he had family there. Or rather, he had David and Katherine-- which was, in his mind, just as good. David and Jack find, after a tense moment, that they were still friends and partners. As Katherine and Jack celebrate with a kiss, David buys their papers for the day and the three set out.
CHARACTER PERSONALITY:Jack's cocksure, confident, a funny man, someone whom most everyone likes and wants to be friends with automatically. He's the older brother and leader to every newsie and hero to most. He sticks up for the little guy, as witnessed when Oscar and Morris try to beat up a smaller newsie: Jack quickly steps in and takes the two on himself. He also defends David, whom he did not yet know, when David insists he's been cheated out of his fair share of papers. He even goes so far as to buy him another 50, just to help him out on his first day.
One of the biggest parts of Jack's personality is that he says he needs no one. Growing up without any parents or family, Jack learned not to trust or let anyone get too close to him. This doesn't mean he isn't lonely, however; he invents an entire backstory about how his parents are out west and he is simply waiting for them to send for him-- an entirely unnecessary lie, as the newsies would not have cared one way or another about his past if he had chosen not to tell it. But this need for a family may be why he is both attracted and jealous of David and his family: because David represents everything he wishes he could have. He bitterly tells David this when David demands a reason for Jack's betrayal: "You see, I ain't got nobody tucking me in at night, like you ... [and] what's being a newsie ever give[n] me but a dime a day and a few black eyes?"
Jack's also a dreamer: Santa Fe, to him, represents everything he could not have growing up. It is opportunity and fortune and riches just waiting to be discovered, and most of all, it's where he'll finally be free of everything he hates about New York. He even goes so far as to dress up in a red bandanna and cowboy hat, earning himself the nickname "Cowboy".
More than anything, though, Jack is the champion for the underdogs: he always tries to do the right (although not always legal) thing and when on the Bad Guy's side, feels uneasy and wrong. Although he had the chance of a lifetime-- more money than he could ever earn, and an easy way to get it-- he quickly dropped the deal in favor of his old friends. A good description might be "white knight"-- there's an almost compulsive need within him to protect the weak and innocent, simply because they need protecting. That isn't to say he's not above bending the law if it suits him, but never in a malicious way.
WORLD: Jack is from New York city-- and really, that's all he knows. Selling newspapers, living hand to mouth, putting off starvation for another day-- these are all things he's intimately acquainted with. Trees, animals, living on the land-- not so much.
OCCUPATION: Artist! In the play, Jack is noted for being quite a good painter.
SAMPLES
THIRD PERSON: There were trappers on the wagon train, people who caught and skinned animals for fur. They were quite useful. There were carpenters, who repaired the wagons and built homes. There were butchers, tailors, doctors, all who had their uses; each contributed to their wagons and to the party in general, earning themselves a quality name.
And then there was Jack, whose main contribution was that he could paint pretty pictures quite well.
This, unsurprisingly, did not sit well with him-- but what the hell could he do? Anything he was good at wasn't of use out here; there weren't any newspapers to push on people (hell, there wasn't anythingto sell, which was an oddly unfamiliar concept to the city boy). Jack never did well with being idle; it was stupid to laze around when there was work to be done-- especially when it was work that would benefit him. After the third day he grew impatient with himself; by the end of the first week he was nearly climbing up the walls.
So over the next few weeks, Jack began to dabble in more careers than he had in his entire life. He followed the hunters first, because guns and killing things was a manly enough art, before finding that it was actually quite disgusting. He wasn't squeamish, as a rule, but there was a difference between being squeamish and actually enjoying tearing open deer and yanking their skin off.
He tried the tailors next (his mother had been a seamstress, and he could recall at least the very basics of sewing) before finding he didn't have the patience for sewing. Too fast, they scolded, and Jack scowled and decided to move on. Carpenters, doctors, shoemakers, bakers, even teachers-- Jack found he wasn't much good at any of them (though, to be fair, he wasn't really trying that hard).
So, reluctantly, he returned to drawing. He could help with little things, at least; things like unloading the wagons and watering the horses-- and that, at least, he was useful in. Animals seems to love him-- and it wasn't as if the people resented him either; he was quite well liked.
But he still couldn't find something that made him feel-- well-- useful.
FIRST PERSON: You know, we go back home and try talkin' like this, people'll think we's crazy. Just sayin', you talk to your wrist and people think you're either drunk or mad. Or both.
You know, back home, I can remember hearin' about this. I mean, I can distinctly remember listenin' to my Ma tryin' to teach me a bit o' history and mentionin' this. This and the Civil War, those were the two big thin's. I guess she's around here somewhere, theoretically.
Oye, how many o' you remember this? It's gotta be in some o' your histories, right? You can't all be from other, other, other worlds or whatever.
NAME/NICKNAME: Thleen
AGE: 19
PERSONAL LJ: ankeelv2
TIMEZONE: EST!
EMAIL ADDRESS: disconewsie@gmail.com
IM SCREENNAME AND SERVICE: disco newsie (plurk is "ankeel")
CHARACTER
NAME: Jack Kelly
AGE: 17
FANDOM/MEDIUM: Newsies! A movie and a play; I'll be playing him primarily from the play version, with icons from the movie.
CANON PULL-POINT: The very end.
ABILITIES: None!
CHARACTER BACKGROUND: Jack Kelly began life in a normal-- if impovrished-- household. He had a younger brother, a mother, and a father; times were hard, but they were happy enough. Growing up, he'd had been taught that survival was to be his watchword, legality be damned. As a result of that lesson, the boy had been imprisoned more times than he could count in a place called The Refuge-- a dank prison made specifically for the streetrat children of New York City. The intent was to reform them through Christian charity; however, under the rule of the corrupt warden, Snyder, the rat-infestedprison was simply a place for them to starve and be beaten.
After escaping the Refuge at age eight in a feat that would quickly become legend, Jack found his mother dead. His father, long since imprisoned, was of no help, and so Jack found himself and his brother orphaned without a penny to his name. After a failed attempt to head out west with his brother that resulted in his sibling's death, he decided to stay in New York, taking a job as a newsie (one of several hundred boys, made up of the "poor orphans and runaways" of the city, who sold the newspapers for a penny per paper). To anyone who asked, Jack was merely biding his time until his parents, who were out west in Santa Fe looking for a new home, sent for him.
Through the years, Jack quickly became an unofficial leader for the newsies, viewed both as a hero (because of his daring-- and exaggerated-- escape from the Refuge) and an older brother figure. His brash and charismatic personality won him popularity and friends, but none got too close to him until he met newcomer David Jacobs.
David, a brand-new newsie, had only come to work for a short period of time: until his father's arm healed. Until then, however, he was stuck and lost in this new world, one whose rules he didn't understand and customs were foreign to him. Jack, seeing this, quickly took David under his wing as his new "partner" and taught him the basics of newsie lifestyle: number one being how to lie, or "improve the truth", as Jack called it, in order to sell more papers. (In a particularly defining line of dialogue, David disgustedly tells Jack that "my father taught us not to lie," to which Jack plainly replies, "Yeah, well, my father taught me not to starve, so we both got an education.") And it is David who, weeks later, when the price of newspapers is raised by, suggested striking.
Jack quickly seized upon this idea and began to rally the newsies, encouraging them despite having little to no idea on how to actually lead a strike. Although difficult at times (most were skeptical and more willing to just pay the extra dime, especially when the going got rough), between Jack's charismatic personality and David's intelligence, they managed to spark a citywide strike. A rally was planned then, one that would bring all the newsboys together, one that no newspaper could possibly ignore. Things seemed on the verge of success--
--until Jack was recaptured by Snyder and brought to the head of the leading newspaper company, The World: Joseph Pulitzer, who had been desperately trying to suppress the strike, as it was killing his business. Pulitzer, hiding his panic and desperation, offered Jack an easy deal: simply go the the rally and speak against it. Jack would get paid, the strike-- without the support of its charasmatic leader-- would shut down, and everyone would be happy.
But Jack saw through Pulitzer's tactic, realizing that it was only because the tycoon was so terrified of the strike and its effects on his business that he was offering Jack this deal. So Pulitzer played his final ace in the hole: David. He told Jack that he could-- and would-- have David arrested and thrown into the Refuge. Jack, having been in and out of it countless times, knew that David wouldn't survive the tough, cruel lifestyle that was needed in the prison. With that thought-- coupled with the terrifying weight of having the lives and well being of several hundred young children on his hands-- Jack made his decision.
He emerged at the rally in full view of all the newsies-- and David-- loudly proclaiming how they couldn't win the strike, how they ought to just give up and accept the new price. Ignoring the protests of betrayal and rage coming from his old friends, Jack took his money and fled.
This betrayal, however, barely lasted. Jack was soon found by both David and Katherine-- a reporter covering the story with whom Jack had slowly been falling in love-- and convinced that giving up wasn't the right thing to do. Within a day the newsies had gotten their leader back.
The two boys and Katherine quickly made a plan. A few days earlier, Katherine had written an article detailing the cruelties of child labor, discussing just how badly off newsies-- and children all over the city-- really were. With a few illustrations from Jack, their plan was to publish the article themselves, showing the city what things were really like.
Added at the bottom of the article was a note: there would be a rally the next day, to show Pulitzer-- and the entire city-- that the children were going on strike until the prices were lowered again. Because Jack, while working for Pulitzer, had been housed underneath the printingpress for The World, he had quick and easy access to a free printing press: an advantage he wasted no time in using. Jack, David and Katherine, aided by the newsie strikers, quickly printed hundreds of copies of the article and spread it around the city.
The next day at the rally, it seemed as if the entire city showed up: thousands of children gathered and were protesting outside of Pulitzer's office. The man quickly summoned Jack to his office, where the boy negotiated Pulitzer until they came to an agreement: the price would be lowered by half a cent and the newspaper offices would be forced to buy back any papers the children couldn't sell. And, as a bonus, Pulitzer mentioned he was impressed by Jack's illustrations in the paper, and wondered if he would be willing to illustrate a few political cartoons for the World.
Triumphant, Jack left and announced the news to the rest of the children, who celebrated. As an added bonus to the victory, the governor of New York had read the article and realized what conditions at the Refuge truly were like. The governor (none other than Teddy Roosevelt) quickly shut down the children's prison, which meant Jack no longer had to be on the run.
All was perfect.
Except...
Jack, finally having the means, asked the governor if he would be willing to give Jack a lift to the train station, where he would finally leave for Santa Fe. David and Katherine watched, upset, as Jack left once and for all. But lo and behold, not before the day was out did Jack return. After a long talk with Mr. Roosevelt, Jack agreed that he "still [had] things to do". And besides, he had family there. Or rather, he had David and Katherine-- which was, in his mind, just as good. David and Jack find, after a tense moment, that they were still friends and partners. As Katherine and Jack celebrate with a kiss, David buys their papers for the day and the three set out.
CHARACTER PERSONALITY:Jack's cocksure, confident, a funny man, someone whom most everyone likes and wants to be friends with automatically. He's the older brother and leader to every newsie and hero to most. He sticks up for the little guy, as witnessed when Oscar and Morris try to beat up a smaller newsie: Jack quickly steps in and takes the two on himself. He also defends David, whom he did not yet know, when David insists he's been cheated out of his fair share of papers. He even goes so far as to buy him another 50, just to help him out on his first day.
One of the biggest parts of Jack's personality is that he says he needs no one. Growing up without any parents or family, Jack learned not to trust or let anyone get too close to him. This doesn't mean he isn't lonely, however; he invents an entire backstory about how his parents are out west and he is simply waiting for them to send for him-- an entirely unnecessary lie, as the newsies would not have cared one way or another about his past if he had chosen not to tell it. But this need for a family may be why he is both attracted and jealous of David and his family: because David represents everything he wishes he could have. He bitterly tells David this when David demands a reason for Jack's betrayal: "You see, I ain't got nobody tucking me in at night, like you ... [and] what's being a newsie ever give[n] me but a dime a day and a few black eyes?"
Jack's also a dreamer: Santa Fe, to him, represents everything he could not have growing up. It is opportunity and fortune and riches just waiting to be discovered, and most of all, it's where he'll finally be free of everything he hates about New York. He even goes so far as to dress up in a red bandanna and cowboy hat, earning himself the nickname "Cowboy".
More than anything, though, Jack is the champion for the underdogs: he always tries to do the right (although not always legal) thing and when on the Bad Guy's side, feels uneasy and wrong. Although he had the chance of a lifetime-- more money than he could ever earn, and an easy way to get it-- he quickly dropped the deal in favor of his old friends. A good description might be "white knight"-- there's an almost compulsive need within him to protect the weak and innocent, simply because they need protecting. That isn't to say he's not above bending the law if it suits him, but never in a malicious way.
WORLD: Jack is from New York city-- and really, that's all he knows. Selling newspapers, living hand to mouth, putting off starvation for another day-- these are all things he's intimately acquainted with. Trees, animals, living on the land-- not so much.
OCCUPATION: Artist! In the play, Jack is noted for being quite a good painter.
SAMPLES
THIRD PERSON: There were trappers on the wagon train, people who caught and skinned animals for fur. They were quite useful. There were carpenters, who repaired the wagons and built homes. There were butchers, tailors, doctors, all who had their uses; each contributed to their wagons and to the party in general, earning themselves a quality name.
And then there was Jack, whose main contribution was that he could paint pretty pictures quite well.
This, unsurprisingly, did not sit well with him-- but what the hell could he do? Anything he was good at wasn't of use out here; there weren't any newspapers to push on people (hell, there wasn't anythingto sell, which was an oddly unfamiliar concept to the city boy). Jack never did well with being idle; it was stupid to laze around when there was work to be done-- especially when it was work that would benefit him. After the third day he grew impatient with himself; by the end of the first week he was nearly climbing up the walls.
So over the next few weeks, Jack began to dabble in more careers than he had in his entire life. He followed the hunters first, because guns and killing things was a manly enough art, before finding that it was actually quite disgusting. He wasn't squeamish, as a rule, but there was a difference between being squeamish and actually enjoying tearing open deer and yanking their skin off.
He tried the tailors next (his mother had been a seamstress, and he could recall at least the very basics of sewing) before finding he didn't have the patience for sewing. Too fast, they scolded, and Jack scowled and decided to move on. Carpenters, doctors, shoemakers, bakers, even teachers-- Jack found he wasn't much good at any of them (though, to be fair, he wasn't really trying that hard).
So, reluctantly, he returned to drawing. He could help with little things, at least; things like unloading the wagons and watering the horses-- and that, at least, he was useful in. Animals seems to love him-- and it wasn't as if the people resented him either; he was quite well liked.
But he still couldn't find something that made him feel-- well-- useful.
FIRST PERSON: You know, we go back home and try talkin' like this, people'll think we's crazy. Just sayin', you talk to your wrist and people think you're either drunk or mad. Or both.
You know, back home, I can remember hearin' about this. I mean, I can distinctly remember listenin' to my Ma tryin' to teach me a bit o' history and mentionin' this. This and the Civil War, those were the two big thin's. I guess she's around here somewhere, theoretically.
Oye, how many o' you remember this? It's gotta be in some o' your histories, right? You can't all be from other, other, other worlds or whatever.