#i feel like this is pretty standard as far as delancey backstories go tbh but it was fun to piece together my own details

[thefactsofthematter]

delanceys. what is their psychology. why are they the way they are. why do they wanna punch down on those barely a peg below them on the class ladder. why do they hate jack specifically. go go go -@jack-kellys

ty @jack-kellys for enabling me!! i’ll lay down some backstory thoughts here, and i got another ask where i’ll get into my thoughts abt their personalities n stuff!!

okay here we go:

- so. they’re the only people jack knows who spent longer in the refuge than he did. they were already in there the first time he got put in, and didn’t get out until after his second stint there, when wiesel finally came to get them (claiming to be their long-lost uncle, when he really asked snyder if he could take a couple kids to put to work at the newspaper, and was given 14 year old oscar and 12 year old morris just to get them out of the way).

- spending a good chunk of their formative years in jail severely fucked up their worldview and ways of thinking. their dad dropped them off himself, not wanting anything to do with them after their mom died, and they’ve only had each other ever since.

- they spent over 3 years in there, surviving by keeping to themselves and never starting fights, only finishing them. they watched jack constantly mouth off at the guards and go kicking and screaming whenever he got dragged out of the room for some kind of punishment - and they resented him for it, bc the guards would often be much more aggressive and mean after incidents like that. jack kelly came into the refuge, made things worse for everyone, and then found some clever way to sneak out… TWICE. it was infuriating.

- so they finally got out, and started their new job at the world, only to find out that jack fucking kelly was a newsie now, and a popular one at that. he had the same smart mouth that got him in trouble in the refuge, but all it did out here was make the other kids laugh - and he often put it to use against oscar and morris, with cutting comments and mean jokes that felt unwarranted at first, pushing them to really start bullying jack and the newsies in return.

- their job at the newspaper is miserable, but there’s no escaping it - they spend long days counting and bundling papers, and then they have to stand there and hand them out to the newsies, who just seem like they have so much fun. those kids live with their friends in the lodging house, and they roam the streets all day, and they’re always laughing and joking… while oscar and morris share a tiny bedroom at wiesel’s place, and don’t often get to be around anyone other than each other. they’re paid only in room and board - if they were to try to run away and leave the job, they’d be homeless and penniless, with both wiesel and snyder out to chase them down.

- a detail i’m gonna elaborate on eventually is that i think oscar, as the older brother, is much angrier than morris is. his entire life has been about keeping morris safe… something he’s largely failed at. no matter what he does, he’s forced to see his brother scared and hurt and exhausted and beaten-down, practically all the time. morris, while just as big and strong as his brother, is scared of wiesel, scared of snyder, sometimes even scared of oscar’s bad moods and temper, meaning all of oscar’s efforts to protect him typically backfire and make things worse.

- so they’re angry. they punch down because that’s all that’s ever been done to them. they don’t care about anyone other than each other, and they resent jack and the newsies for a life that looks better than their own isolated one, despite knowing that it’s just as hard out there for them. the older they get, the more people they start to take their rage out on - like beating up on trolley strikers, which is the only type of extra work wiesel allows them to pick up in the evenings, or doing snyder’s dirty work and dragging kids to the refuge as some kind of revenge for everything they’ve gone through.

- they suck, right? but in their situation, who wouldn’t? it’s hard to feel bad for them, given how cruel they are in canon, but it’s definitely interesting to take a look at where they might’ve come from. these poor fellas just never managed to catch a break, and it ruined them :(