thatoneandlonelyemo2005

[thatoneandlonelyemo2005]

[thatoneandlonelyemo2005]

how does one even comprehend life or the meaning of the day

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do you have any blush thoughts? 😊

oh i have so many blush thoughts Always, thank you so much for asking <3 i am on such a blush kick at the moment too, my absolute guys

to me, they’ve been together before there was even any concept of “being together” between them. that sort of childhood best friends to lovers where nothing ever really changes, the lines just blur, all of the usual rules and boundaries melted away in favour of this bone-deep understanding and easy affection. they don’t have words for it, don’t use words for it — they’re just blink and mush. everyone knows that.

they have no real idea when their anniversary would be, when their first kiss was shared, what their first date was. it had all felt so totally natural that it had never occurred to either of them to check the calendar, take note of it, at the time. they’d been sat together in one of their usual spots and when mush had leaned forwards and kissed blink, it had felt sort of like it’d been that way forever — like that clumsy press of lips had always been there between them. the first was just the first of many, hadn’t felt significant in itself. although they’d both gotten better at it.

(blink was a better kisser to begin with. he’s dated girls, messed around with them over the years. mush had never been interested. just waited the short while for blink to come back — which he always did, straight back to mush with stories to tell, jokes to make.)

they absolutely plan a life together. both of them are too realistic to get too fantastical with it, but they get just as much joy talking about the work they’ll get, the little apartment they’ll buy and live in together — “as friends,” mush teases. “plenty young men live together as friends. bachelors.” — and how life will be without the streets breathing down their necks. they’re under no real illusion they’ll ever live Normal lives, they know things will always be difficult for them. but they’ve got the “us against the world” mentality, y’know? they can face anything so long as they’ve got each other.

though the both of them have grown up in this environment where they’ve never really been able to trust anything or anyone, they can trust each other. they’re each other’s constant. and there can definitely be an edge of unhealthiness to it sometimes, but, well. they can have a little codependency. as a treat.

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blinky the kid

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i like rereading these

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when davey stays over at the bunkhouse, he gives all the littles forehead or cheek kisses. he gives them to the elder newsies if they ask as well. jack just sits on his bunk waiting for his kisses.

its not a headcanon. its canon either way.

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Bumlets and Boots!! I've been making a lot of Bumlets gifs lately and I love how much he interacts with the little newsies! There are so many little moments in the background that I adore!

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Newsies and Immigration

Since some people seemed interested in me talking about the effects immigration could have on our favorite little newsboys, I thought I’d make a post about it. I really did focus on community a lot in this because of how important it was and still is to the culture of New York, so these might be kinda samey and I apologize for that. I didn’t do all of the newsies, just some of the ones that really screamed “affected by immigration in some way,” but if you want to hear about any of the characters I missed, feel free to ask, and I’ll see if I can come up with something! Minor warning, this is kinda angsty, but I made sure to add fluff!

Based on his names and lines in the novelization, Jack is Irish. No matter when his relatives immigrated, they likely suffered in some way from the potato famine. Ireland is still affected by the famine today, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Jack would struggle with its effects, such as generational trauma. Besides that, there’s textual evidence for Jack struggling with food insecurity the way many poor, disenfranchised kids do.

Because of this, I think Jack would see food as a love language of sorts. You can kinda see this in the scene where he’s eating with the Jacobs family: Jack just really basks in the domesticity of taking part in a family meal and it clearly meant a lot to him. I think that when people make food for him, whether it be a full meal or a cake for his birthday, he’d be really touched. And when he’s older and he has a home and a kitchen of his own, I think he’d try to do the same thing for his loved ones. Results may vary, but the love behind his actions never does.

The history of Jewish immigration to America is very long, but the bulk of that immigration happened between 1880 and 1920, when Poland was divided under Russian, Prussian, and Austro-Hungarian rule. Many of these immigrants were leaving Eastern Europe to escape pogroms targeting Jewish people under Russian rule after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. Because of these pogroms, about 3 million Eastern European Jewish immigrants came to America between 1880 and 1924.

This influx of immigration led to a very strong Jewish community in the Lower East Side that the Jacobs family would be part of. Manhattan was (and still is) the epicenter of Jewish culture in America and I don’t see it explored enough. David clearly isn’t thrilled at the idea of going back to school, so his closest friends besides the newsies would most likely be from their synagogue and I’m sure it’s similar for Sarah now that she’s working from home. I imagine it would be very a very tight community, especially for Esther and Sarah.

Spanish and Latino immigration to New York was fairly uncommon in the 19th century and still only hit its peak in the mid-20th century. Bumlets (played by a Latino actor) would most likely be pretty lonely in a way the other boys aren't. And as much as he loves the family he’s made for himself with, it’s a very different community than the one he was born into (I personally headcanon Puerto Rican).

Which means that when he does manage to find a similar community in Manhattan, I think he’d really latch onto it. And since he’s such a genuinely sweet boy (at least imo), I think they’d really love him right back! I absolutely adore the friendship/found family the movie gave the boys, but I think it would be really good for him to have a community built around cultural experiences in addition to his newsie community.

I’ve always seen Itey as a fairly recent immigrant, meaning I placed him as immigrating in early 1899. An interesting phenomenon I learned about through my research is that many Italian immigrants during this time period were single men and that an average of 40% of these men would later return to Italy. The immigrants who stayed, like Itey, would still be very close to their families in Italy and send money back to them.

Family is extremely important in Italian culture and I think being so young and so far away from his family would be very difficult for Itey. I’ve always seen him as 16, so he’s at a strange point in life where he’s old enough to live in America on his own, but still young enough that he needs guidance and support from someone older and more settled. Obviously, Kloppman provides that support for the boys as best he can, but I also think Itey found a community of his own among his fellow Italian immigrants. I’ve mentioned this in a different post, but I'll go ahead and say it again: This guy is a hit with little old Italian nonnas.

(Side note: @nsnshahana asked me if I could have one of his many adoptive nonnas and while it doesn’t exactly line up with the independent young man I see him as, he still very loved and supported by them, so don’t worry! He’s very well-cared for.)

My friend @chaosfairy introduced me to the idea of Dutchy being a Dutch immigrant who grew up on the border between the Netherlands (typically called Holland then) and Germany, meaning he speaks both Dutch and German. And thanks to @jackcowboyhero, I also think he has a real knack for picking up languages (English, of course, but also French, Italian, and a little Spanish!). So you have a young man who knows six different languages, which is very impressive! The thing is, I also think he’s dyslexic.

Even today, people refuse to understand dyslexia and I think it would be very hard on Dutchy, especially when he was learning English as a child. Reading and writing in Dutch was hard enough, but when you add in an entirely new language, I think he’d feel like he was dumber than he actually is for a long time. What I think would help him with these feelings is, first and foremost, supportive friends. You would never be able to convince me that the other boys wouldn’t find his affinity for the spoken language fascinating and I think they would definitely help him improve his fluency.

Last but not least, I think Swifty would have a very complicated experience with immigration. He is a half-white, half-Chinese boy living during the height of the Chinese Exclusion Act and during an era where it’s illegal for him to exist in pretty much every state besides New York. To keep him and any siblings he might have as safe as possible, I think his parents would’ve raised him as more American than Chinese. So he has this disconnect from his heritage that really starts to bother him as he gets older.

One issue he’d face is the fact that the majority of Chinatown residents during that time spoke Cantonese and I’ve always seen him as being semi-conversational in Mandarin. It would be one of those things that further isolates him from his heritage and I think it would be very frustrating for him. However, he’s also a very stubborn person, so I can definitely see him teaching himself Cantonese just so he can make those connections with other people.

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background/two-pixel characters my beloved

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he literally makes me cry

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reminder that this boy CAN do wrong

HAS done wrong

and we LOVE him for it

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Modern Skittery doing his eyebrows one day and somehow cutting a slit into it and just ran with it

Later on he kills Bumlets and Swifty with how hot he looks now

Skittery also gave a slit to Dutchy and now they are twins<3

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Modern Dutchy is into Wheezer and his favorite song is Pork and Beans

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Over the years, I've seen some posts about how fics set in canon era are boring. It doesn't happen a lot and obviously everyone is allowed to have their own preferences, but it's one of those things that really baffles me when I stumble across a post about it. Newsies is a period piece set in 1899 and I don't understand how fans of the movie could find the time period boring. Especially since there are so many unique and interesting things that can be done with canon era fics!

Vaudeville theater is an obvious one, since it really hit its peak in that era. While theaters are obviously still around, the vaudeville style is a lost art and the fact that Medda is a successful theater owner in an era where women were discouraged from doing things like that is both fascinating and aspirational.

There were so many things that were either invented in the late 19th century or became more available to the masses during that time period. In my experience, having characters try something that's new for them but something I have regular access to gives me a whole new appreciation for it.

There are also a lot of great takes on the immigrant perspective from that time period that can't be replicated in modern times. There's a good chance that a lot of the newsies came through Castle Garden (pre-1889), Ellis Island (1892-1897, 1900-1954), or the Barge Office (1890-1891, 1897-1900) and if they aren't immigrants themselves, their parents probably were. And there is so much you can do with it with just a little research, even just five minutes of reading. And if you don't have time for research, ask me! I'd be happy to do it for you!

Not to mention, there's so much stuff either mentioned or alluded to in the movie that you can play around with! Sarah and Esther being the breadwinners during the strike! The abundance of other strikes going on when the newsies were striking (Side note, @vnewyorku is doing this great Summer of Strikes thing and posting newspaper clippings from the era and transcribing them, so if you love history, check it out)! For angst, you could talk about Jack's history of food insecurity or the Refuge!

And of course, there's the fact that so much of what we love about the characters is shaped by the time period they live in. Not just the strike itself, but so much of who they are comes from the world around them. I mean, the fact that they're children who have to work for a living is something that's difficult to replicate in modern fics. Jack's desire to leave New York for Santa Fe was inspired by Western Expansion and cowboy dime novels. Racetrack, who's 19 at the oldest, spends all day gambling at Sheepshead, a track that no longer exists. Lodging houses for working children no longer exist, so realistically, the boys wouldn't have the same dynamic in modern times that they have in canon. The world they live in is so different than ours and it fascinates me.

Again, everyone can have their own preferences and I'm not trying to police how people engage with the fandom. I'm just using this as an opportunity to pretty much gush about my love of history and maybe give everyone a new appreciation for the movie and the time it's set in. If anyone has other time period-specific things they love, please feel free to add on to this post or send me an ask/DM because I would love to hear them!

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I think as a fandom we should accept that the jokes about us being obsessed with background characters who have the wierdest names are 100% true and correct

looking at you fucking Pie Eater

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