#the refuge

[baeenih]

“ The world below looks so small… No turning back now… “

[hey-they-was-coronas]

jack sees the refuge as a void. an endless pit that won’t spit you back up if you fall in. right now, jack’s dangling over it. he gets tastes of what it’s like in the void, and sometimes it feels like he’s fallen in. but he knows he’s not there yet. he knows because the boys who’ve succumbed to it are like robots. they obey, they stay silent, they’ve been broken by the monster.

jack fell over the edge when he was 9, but it’s a long way down, and he’s not trapped in the void just yet. correction, he would’ve been by 16, but the only thing holding him is his brothers. finch, race, albert, mush, everyone. he’s dangling headfirst and they’ve been holding him by his feet. they’re slowly slipping.

soon, they won’t be able to hold on anymore.

“please.”

“i just have to make it to 18.”

“please…”

[master-of-the-starsies]

idk if anyone wants to see this cause this is my starlight express account, but i love newsies so i made a chart of hc’s for every manhattan newsie (except kenny and kid blink sorryyy)

here it is so i’ll explain what everything means

the top timeline is basically just when each one of them became a newsie. i have how they became newsies for everyone but that’s a different chart.

the second timeline labelled “the refuge” is when each newsie went to the refuge.

the colours and numbers are just values of various things that are in the chart.

the little stars next to their names mean that they weren’t a manhattan newsie yet during that time in the refuge.

the underlines are just who was there together (ex: if jack and mush have the same colour underline, they either were arrested together and served the sentence together, OR they were arrested around the same time and their sentences overlapped at some point)

next to each year on the timeline, there is a coloured dot. this dot is just how many of the manhattan newsies went to the refuge that year.

similarly, the list on the bottom left with coloured dots next to each of their names is how many times they’ve been to the refuge in total.

the list on the bottom right is a ranking out of five of how much snyder hates them specifically. (i hc that he despises all manhattan newsies just because of jack, so he likes to target them on the street and be extra cruel to them in the refuge)

(side note: a lot of the last names are just my hc’s)

thank you for coming to my awesome presentation

also my newsies account is @hey-they-was-coronas

[unknowna-k]

Refuge

[literallycrutchiemorris]

[the-woirld-is-yer-erster]

Racetrack and Jack both sleep with shoes on because of the refuge, they feel the need to get up and run away and if they dont have them on, they think the shoes will get stolen

[meicherienewsies]

Something I feel that both Newsies media and the fandom don't discuss very well is just how bad the refuge would have been. The irl refuge, New York House of Refuge, while created with good intentions, was horrible for the children living there (which is known thankfully). But the full severity of the abuse isn't talked about very often, and I think that's a shame. One quality of the Refuge I haven't seen discussed is the forced labor. A child in the refuge would spend the majority of their day doing factory jobs or manual labor, with no pay or reward. There was also the chance that a child would get sent out to work on farms as slaves or out to sea for the navy. There was also no limit to how long a sentence could be, so a kid could be there until 14 (which could be treated under adult law) and sent to an adult prison. Another aspect is the physical punishment. Being beaten is the most well known punishment, however, other punishments included being handcuffed to your bunk or elsewhere, wearing a ball and chain around your leg, hanging from your thumbs, being cuffed around your ankles (leg irons), the barrel (just being forced to wear a barrel), solitary confinement, and the ducking chair for girls (like the ones used on wiches). Keep in mind that while these kids were being forced to work for long hours on end, they were also malnourished living in overcrowded, dirty concrete rooms that were basically just boxes, so sickness was very common and spread like wildfire. Yes the Refuge is acknowledged as bad, but it is so much worse than commonly depicted.

Thanks for listening or reading my rant. I spent too much time today researching refuge homes for the rp today and needed to get it off my chest. @generic-newsies-username here you go!