everyone loves a DavidLives!AU (me included) but what about the other boys?
David dies from the antlers piercing his heart and Max explodes. The Emersons think it’s over, leaving to a hotel for the night…
and then Marko arrives at the house, the stake having only punctured his lung and sent him having to hunt rather than seek revenge
and then Paul climbs out of the tub, burned to high hell with chunks of flesh missing but alive (as much as a vampire can be)
and then Dwayne sits up, electricity still coursing through his veins, burns covering his skin and a hole in his chest from the crossbow bolt but heart undamaged
all so incredibly angry, near consumed by grief for the only family they have ever truly had
and these three vampires, sireless without Max and leaderless without David, have to figure out what to do on their own for the first time in decades
they have to take David’s body back to the hotel, to choose between burial and his body rotting away or letting him burn to ashes in the sun while they watch from the shade
do they stay at home in Santa Carla, known territory leaving them at constant risk from the Frogs? or do they leave and find a new home, losing their last remaining link to David in the process?
expanding on my DavidDies!AU cos this is a thing now apparently
my opinions on how each of the boys would react to losing David is different between movie and musical canon, so for now here’s Movie!LostBoys
Movie!Dwayne would probably force stoicism to try and lead the boys, barely speaking until he accidentally lashes out at them, before flying off to their old spot on the boardwalk, consumed with grief, anger and shame. he talks to David there, asks how he did this, how he’s meant to measure up to him. how he’s meant to live having lost one of the only people he ever truly loved and who loved him in turn. the moon and the stars do not answer
Movie!Paul would get so high he’s barely aware of anything around him, mostly rambling nonsense with brief periods of lucidity to feed before immediately pulling out another joint, so he doesn’t have to think about David being gone. sometimes he thinks he sees David staring him from his old chair, a ghost watching with sorrow in his eyes as he drowns himself in liquor and drugs. Paul always looks away first, and David is always gone when he looks back
Movie!Marko would try and keep spirits up, stretching himself thin to keep Paul from sending himself into oblivion and Dwayne from pulling away entirely, only letting himself grieve when alone with his pigeons. sometimes he tells them about his life before the boys, sometimes about how he would get revenge on the Emersons. he doesn’t, get revenge that is, solely because he knows that despite everything, David would not want Michael or Star to die
every morning, no matter how upset or angry they are (at the Emersons, at the world, at David, at each other and themselves) the boys end up clinging to each other in a cavern far from the cave entrance, David’s body buried beneath them. it is a cold comfort, to still have him with them knowing he will not wake up
Something I love about the Lost Boys movie that is made even clearer by the different music styles in the musical, is that all three Emersons are experiencing three different story genres.
Michael is experiencing a true gothic horror romance.
Sam is experiencing a monster squad-style coming of age teenage horror comedy.
Lucy is experiencing a second chance romance, complete with her children trying to get in the way of her new relationship
This becomes exceptionally clear when you listen to Secret Comes Out, My Brother Is A..., and The Good Part back to back.
OKAY to satisfy my own curiosity, after having just seen a series of gifs from the bridge sequence, on here, I tracked down the passage from the making-of book, Lost in the Shadows, where Kiefer discusses it, specifically.
(Holy long sentence Batman)
The way it’s portrayed in Kiefer’s full quote, whether they ever filmed David catching Michael or not, it seems clear he’s just talking about the canon-existing film scenes. Not anything only in the screenplay and/or novelization.
It’s interesting that Kiefer feels this strongly just about what we DO see. But think about it. Michael casually asking, “What’s goin on?” The light and flirty banter.
David putting his arm around Michael’s shoulders. Michael (foolishly) trusting David enough to hang from the bridge, even while believing he might get seriously hurt, or worse.
David sensuously descending into the fog/clouds, soundlessly, and Michael crying out for him.
Not “Help! Anybody!”
Yes, they were probably in a remote area.
But he doesn’t want ANYBODY.
He wants David. And he wants David to be okay.
Just my two cents.
(Well, and counting the pic from the book, also Kiefer’s).
i started keeping track of all the lore details ali louis bourzgui drops for david. i now release it unto the world for your reading pleasure:
obviously this is non-exhaustive and i will do my best to update it if/when more tidbits come out + feel free to comment/rb with anything i missed!
ali has said he has a very extensive backstory written down but probably will never release the bulk of it bc so much of david's appeal is his Mysterious Vibes </3
BUT ANYWAY. info organized to the best of my ability!
THIS DOC CONTAINS THE MOST UP TO DATE LIST!
AESTHETICS:
HAIR: “I think David is hiding behind his hair. Deep inside, he's a hurt individual who is running from himself, so his extravagant costume and glam-rock look is actually him hiding his true nature, even from himself.” Broadway.com
NECKLACES: “I like to think that David keeps the keys from all the places he's lived during his many years on Earth. He likes to pretend he doesn't hold on to the past, like he's moving forward, but he's very sentimental and he just refuses to look at that. If he did then I think everything would be fixed.” Tony’s Instagram Takeover
CLOTHES: His top/end of show jacket has 2 gold chevrons on it reflecting the fact that Ali imagines David served about a year in the military during WW1 (1917-1918). + David used to have a black vest bedazzled/embroidered with stars (🥲) that he wore during Brother, but it was cut even before the previews began. Tony’s Instagram Takeover
MUSIC: His favorite type of music is classical from the 1910s because he was around for it (again, sentimental). + Cello music specifically is reflective of “the inner world of David's mind: stuck in the past, but deeply longing for a future that's fixed.” (Ali talks a little more about cello music helping get into the David mindset here) + His favorite Resident Lightweight (Ali’s band) song would be Nostalgia. Tony’s Instagram Takeover
VOICE: “I worked on figuring out a combo of [Kiefer’s] voice, my voice, and different rockstar voices to create a different sound. I wanted him to feel like he's actually a 97 year old inside of a 20-something year old body.” It Takes Two
MISC: David was born in 1890, making him 97 during the story in 1987.
RELATIONSHIPS:
SEXUALITY: “I think that even in his human life he was queer- personally- and then when he becomes a vampire, you reach a certain level of immortality where it doesn't even matter. You could call it pansexuality or, like, ‘yeah, everything's attractive to me now, I've lived for so long I don't even need labels’.”
“It’s not even always about sexuality… he finds Michael and Star both attractive, but he also sees them as siblings, and he also kinda wants to be their leader or their father figure. It's this crazy combination of him just wanting to be everything to them– it's multiple facets of attraction, so I think it's better to not pin down 100% his feelings as this thing, because I don't even think he's 100% sure”
“I also think he grew up in the 1920s, so I'm not sure he ever fully admitted anything to himself or discovered that about himself. Now that it's the 80s, he's starting to hear labels, but he's so far into this vampire realm that do labels even matter? I don't know. But he's definitely attracted to both Star and Michael from my point of view."
^ All from The Contending interview
MICHAEL: “David has gotten to the point where he's searching for anything he finds beautiful, and he sees himself in Michael, this wounded individual who instead of taking power into his hands is letting the world kick him around.” Broadway.com (+ “David spent a lot of his life that way, too, but he became a power-hungry individual who kicks the world back.”)
"[My Heart With You] one of the very few moments where David is just being brutally honest and actually opening up that he is so insanely lonely. He's telling Michael, 'you can join us, and we will be honest with you from here on out,' which we know is not true." BuzzFeed
STAR: “Star is the only character that gets to see the human inside of David.” The Contending
From Maria: “She was in a bad way and David was there for her, so she feels like she owes a lot to him.” PIX News
Star is his “favorite of them* all” (*the people he's turned) Tony’s Instagram Takeover
THE BOYS: Marko was the first one turned, then Dwayne, the Paul (“we needed a drummer really bad and this guy was really cool and good at it”). Tony’s Instagram Takeover
PERSONALITY
“He's patient because he's immortal. Every moment is not that big of a deal to him, so there's this boredom about him that is kind of passive-suave. And when something excites him, it really excites him. So he'll go from this numbness to being really intense and not blinking and locked onto something, like a predator.” WWD.com
“At his core, he's a really broken person who used to be really good. His whole thing is that he wants to fix people, which he doesn't realize is him running away from himself. It's empathy that's been tainted. He cares so much about looking for people that he sees himself in and he wants to give them this gift so they can free themselves from whatever situation they're going through.” It Takes Two
Everything beautiful and special in human life is made so by the context of it having to end- so to vampires nothing is special and everything is boring. Survival Jobs (paraphrased)
“There's a really hurt boy in there. He is the lost boy. There's something he's running from that he's making everyone else's problem. And I don't think he realizes what he really needs is to let go.” Survival Jobs
“It's been fun to find how [humanity] slips out of him and how much he chooses to let people see, and how much he's hiding from himself. A lot of it was leaning into the vulnerability, the hurt– David is the lost boy of them all, he's so lost in 90 years of running from himself.” The Contending
David was human “like 90 years ago”, has some major trauma from his human life that he thought turning into a vampire would fix, but years later he's still running from it and is convinced that by making other vampires he can fix them. He's so preoccupied with fixing others and he's never looking inward. Survival Jobs (paraphrased)
“He’s looking for this sense of family and he's gonna do anything he can to force this idea of family and surround himself with love in kinda a violent way.” PIX News
“I think he's been trapped in America his whole life, personally. That's why he is the way he is.” The Contending
"David thinks he's saving people from their mortal fate." The Roundtable
“There's a confidence to David where he has this mischievous thing that he's so bored with life after having lived so long that he kinda looks for ways to mess with the mundane. If something is super regular or built in as a human thing, he's just trying to mess with that stuff.” It Takes Two
*"In many ways, David represents the people of the world who promise you a place to belong and take advantage of the loneliness in our culture right now. ... David also represents the oppressors of the world and the people that want to take away your spark or individualism. He's a warning that if you're going to make a chosen family and you're going to find a place to belong, make sure that place accepts you for exactly who you are." BuzzFeed
"At the same time, he's a victim of this. He's so lonely — he also wants a family and to belong to someone. He has so much trauma, and instead of allowing himself to be loved, he's gonna manipulate people and force an idea of family around him, until he realizes that isn't possible. I feel for the guy, but he is a psychopath and a murderer, so you can't give him too much forgiveness." BuzzFeed
i'm sure he's phrasing everything in such a personal manner in order to be respectful to the actors that came before/will come after him but sometimes when he's talking about His Thoughts on david it reminds me of:
do you perchance have any bumswiftery hcs (i’m going slightly feral over them rn lol))
OFC i have bumswiftery!!! love my favorite throuple :) (who isn’t going feral over them loll)
thanks for the ask friend <3
Skittery is a nail biter, and Swifty is a skin picker. Bumlets grabs their hands whenever they start to do this, like the sweetheart he is. but if they’re both doing it simultaneously, Bumlets will attempt to grab all four hands at once, very awkwardly too.
we’ve already established that Skittery CANNOT cook (bless his heart). Bumlets is the master chef, so he’ll make most of the meals, SEASONING APPROPRIATELY OFC. Swifty can and will cook, but he prefers baking, and will make cupcakes on a weekly basis. when his partners are in the kitchen, Skittery just sits there like “ahhhh what do i do”
Swifty claims he doesn’t want to wear his boyfriends’ clothes, because his “are more stylish”, but he’ll wear them when he’s alone or when he’s “cold”.
the three of their emotions link up, if that makes sense. like when Skittery is feeling depressed or hopeless, Swifty will literally cling to his arm and maybe cry. and Bumlets’ heart will break and he’ll search for anything to make his bfs feel better; trinkets, food, movies, etc.
and they will literally not stop doing trio costumes and songs. Skittery usually has to be convinced, but Swifty is SO into it. they do it all; heathers, schuyler sisters, the plastics, snap crackle & pop, three musketeers, ALL OF IT
when they go out, Bumlets will carry a bag with stuff his bfs might need; noise canceling headphones, bandages, change of clothes, water, etc. (Swifty and Skittery both have sensory problems okay)
Bumlets tends to overwork himself, and when that happens his boyfriends are ON IT. Skittery WILL aggressively talk at him until he lays down on the couch. they put on his favorite movie and will bring him snacks. Bumlets doesn’t know how to react really, but he really appreciates it.
any hc’s/incorrect quotes for your favorite background newsies?
(also sorry i don’t know if this sent twice, my phone started losing it’s mind when i tried to send this in the first time)
DW OFC I GOT YOU :) I apologize because my mom took my phone but I got it back :)
MY FAVORITE BACKROUND NEWSIE? SKITTERY OR MUSH SO WE DO BOTH :)
first Mr skittles:
He absolutely runs on pure caffeine and audacity. If coffee existed in 1899 the way it does now, he’d be banned from at least three spots.
Talks with his hands. No, like, aggressively. Jack has 100% been smacked mid-speech.
Pretends he’s unbothered 24/7 but is actually lowkey one of the most observant newsies. He notices who’s upset before they say anything. Will NOT acknowledge that he cares though.
Competitive over the dumbest stuff.
“Bet I can sell more papes than you.”
“Skits, it’s raining.”
“AND??”
He and Race have beef but it’s exclusively “I love you but if you breathe wrong I’m starting a war.”
Has a laugh that is either:
A wheeze
A cackle
Both. Simultaneously.
Dramatic. Falls to the ground when mildly inconvenienced.
“I have been BETRAYED.”
(Someone took the last roll.)
Definitely climbs things he shouldn’t. Rooftops. Fire escapes. Probably a lamppost once.
The type to say something absolutely unhinged and then act like you’re weird for reacting.
Secret softie with the younger newsies. If someone’s cold? Suddenly there’s an extra scarf. If someone didn’t eat? “I ain’t hungry anyway.”
HATES being called cute. You call him cute once and he will duel you.
Has that scrappy, wiry energy. Not the biggest, but scrappy fighters are terrifying and he absolutely bites if necessary. (Respectfully.)
When Jack goes into Leader Mode™ during the strike, Skittery is one of the loudest hype men in the room. He thrives in chaos and solidarity.
Lowkey would absolutely start the chanting at a protest. He’s got the lungs for it.
MUSHY BOI:
He’s way smarter than people realize. Quiet observer energy. He clocks everything.
Dry humor. He’ll say something completely unhinged in the calmest voice and then go back to eating like nothing happened.
Not the loudest in the room, but when he speaks? It lands.
Chronic eye-roller. Especially at Race.
Lowkey the best at mental math during distribution. Doesn’t brag. Just hands Jack the correct number like, “You’re welcome.”
Reads whatever newspapers they don’t sell. Knows random facts about the world and drops them at the weirdest times.
Definitely the one who explains things to the younger newsies when Jack is being dramatic instead of helpful.
Him and Race are SUCH a duo. Race is chaos. Mush is the deadpan narrator.
Protective older brother vibes toward the little guys (Les, Snipeshooter, etc.).
Gets along surprisingly well with Davey because they can both sit in silence without it being awkward.
Teases Jack in a very “I know your secrets” way.
He’s always the one passing food around first. “You haven’t eaten yet.” No one knows where he gets the extra bread.
Sleeps curled up in the lodging house like a cat.
Has the nicest handwriting out of all of them and pretends he doesn’t.
If someone’s having a rough day, he’ll just sit next to them. No big speech. Just presence.
During the strike? He’s quieter but sharper. You can tell he’s thinking ten steps ahead.
Absolutely the type to suggest the idea that saves the day and then let Jack take the credit.
When he gets fired up though?? Oh it’s scary calm. Like, “No. We ain’t backing down.” And everyone just nods
Wears oversized sweaters and thrifted jackets.
The friend who has a 3am playlist titled “contemplating existence but make it vibey.”
Would 100% have a Letterboxd account and very strong opinions.
Group chat lurker but when he sends a message it’s either devastatingly funny or emotionally profound.
Which newsies were real and which ones were made up?
Excellent question!
The most well known of course is Kid Blink, whose real name was Louis Baletti. Other real 1899 strike leaders included Ed "Racetrack" Higgins (leader of the Brooklyn union), "Spot" Conlon, "Crutch" Morris (also called "One-Leg Morris," secretary of the union), and "Boots" McAleen/McAleenan (noted as being just 11 years old at the time of the strike by The New York Sun).
Jack Kelly and David Jacobs exist in a dubious realm between fact and fiction. Jack Kelly is based on a few different boys including Kid Blink, and David is at least partially inspired by "Dave" Simmons/Simons, president of the union.
Apart from these characters, many of the original cast of newsies were based on/named after real newsboys.
Here's a list with some pictures and clippings I have on hand:
Kid Blink (and kind of Jack Kelly) - Louis "Kid Blink" Baletti
Right: "'Striking Newsboys Stand Firm." July 30, 1899. The New York Herald.
David Jacobs - "Dave" Simmons/Simons
Right: “New-York Newsboys.” July 30, 1899. New-York Daily Tribune.
Racetrack - Ed "Racetrack" Higgins
"Newsboys Act and Talk." July 25, 1899. The New York Times.
Spot Conlon - "Spot" Conlon
"The Only Tie-Up In Town." July 21, 1899. The New York Sun.
Crutchy - "Crutch" Morris
"A Newsboys' Meeting." July 24, 1899. The New York Tribune.
Boots - "Boots" McAleen/McAleenan
"Newsboys 'Go Out'." July 20, 1899. The New York Sun.
Mush - "Young Mush"/"Young Myers"
"Newsboys' Strike Swells." July 23, 1899. The New York Sun.
Bumlets, Dutchy, Snitch ("The Snitcher"), Snoddy, Swifty the Rake ("Kelly the Rake"), Snipeshooter ("Snipe-Shooter"), Pie Eater, Skittery, and Jake the Oyster
Pictures and text excerpts from: "Darkness and Daylight." 1897, pp. 124 - 125.
Of the original 1992 newsies, the only characters not directly inspired or based on historical newsboys are Specs and Itey.
As far as I'm aware, the stage musical newsies Albert, Buttons, Elmer, Finch, Henry, Jo Jo, Romeo, and Tommy Boy were all made up. (Though there were likely multiple newsboys with the first names Albert, Elmer, or Henry.)
