the devil gave me a crooked start | ATARAXION

[gimp]

P L A Y E R   I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Sisi
OOC Journal: melocoton
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: nah, i'm old. (22)
Email + IM: sasslinskis @ yahoo, inquisitioned @ aim.
Characters Played at Ataraxion: N/A

C H A R A C T E R   I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: "Isaac Newton", aka Newt.
Canon: The Maze Runner Series
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: The beginning of The Scorch Trials.
Number: If 005 happens to be available, I'd love it. Otherwise, RNG me.

Setting: Great, we're all bloody inspired.
History:

"Newt put his hands against the cool metal of the wall to steady himself as the lift jolted to life. His name. Newt. Floated in his thoughts. But it didn’t feel right. It felt wrong. Like someone had broken into his mind and spray-painted it there, a scribble of graffiti."

Isaac "Newt" Newton's life began in a metal box.

Well, it didn't, really. That's all he could really remember to tell you. Family, friends; anything before his life in that metal elevator had been stolen from him in what he would later learn was a purposeful memory swipe. No matter how much he screamed or yelled, the box wouldn't stop, and when it lifted him to an incredibly bright light, it turned out the box wasn't a box at all, but an elevator, leading to a green field surrounded by massive walls. This would turn out to be the Glade, and Newt, along with nineteen other boys, would be the very first "Gladers".

Not much is known about the boys' life in the beginning of the Glade, but bits and pieces can be assumed; each of them came up with no memories save for their names. The trip up in the box made memories, simple things like basic facts, foggy names of things that should be known, but otherwise? Nothing else. Families, friends, their lives before the Glade--none of it mattered. The boys were stuck together from then on out, and would be the only family they had, and so they started to work together instead. As some took natural leadership, the others began to fall into place--when forced into a survival situation, instead of trying to kill each other, the boys created their own society, grouping themselves together under different jobs so they could create order and make the Glade livable. Newt became a Runner--one of the boys who ran through what was on the outside of the Glade. Those massive walls hid a huge, ever changing maze, and that maze was dangerous. The doors to the Maze would close every night, and for good reason; the boys found out that monsters called Grievers would wander the pathways and attack any poor Glader stuck inside after dark. So the rules came about, as easy as anything: never harm another Glader, do your part, and only the Runners were allowed to go beyond the walls.

It was the Runners' job to search the maze and try and solve it to find a way out, but that proved to be far harder than any of the boys planned, and the days dragged on the same way for years. Get up, eat breakfast, run the maze, try not to die, come home, eat dinner, and do it all again the next day. Newt did this over and over and over, every single day, and it began to wear on his mind.

Though the circumstances were unknown, after what can fairly be assumed was a long time, Newt had enough. One day, before the doors to the Maze closed, Newt used the ivy on the massive walls to pull himself about halfway up to the top, and jumped off, aiming to escape the maze and the Glade the only way he knew how--through death.

He survived the fall.

Not only did he survive, but Alby, his boyfriend closest friend, was the first to realize that something was wrong. Newt thought his plan would be foolproof, that even if he somehow survived the fall, the doors would close and he'd be eaten by a Griever, but that was foiled by Alby, who carried him back in before the doors closed. His suicide attempt was kept under wraps for the most part, passed off with an easy lie of running from a Griever, and Newt became the "second in command" of the Glade, leaving his job as a Runner to work alongside Alby, who became the leader after a year or so of searching for an exit, as well as the only person who truly knew what went down in the Maze for Newt. (This is headcanon, as it should be mentioned--but, considering the visceral reaction to learning of it that Thomas had, it's a fairly safe assumption that no one knew.) Now only able to walk with a pronounced limp, Newt threw himself into taking care of the other boys in order to block out the sheer fact that the Maze broke him--that he had to care for someone else in order to care for himself.

Things continued on that way for another year. Every month, a new Glader--a "greenie"--was sent up by an unknown force, along with supplies. Newt and Alby would write the list of things they needed in the Glade, and the box would return with some of them inside. It wasn't easy living, and Newt never let go of his resentment and bitterness, but everything stayed stagnant. Hopeless.

Until, one greenie by the name of Thomas came up.

It started out the same as ever; Newt took a shining to Thomas and helped him out in his first few days, even worried for him when one of the boys--a builder named Ben--was stung by a Griever. Boys had died from the Griever sting before but this is our first real look at what it does. The sting makes boys go through something called the Changing, which isn't so important to Newt's story immediately--though he does mention he never got along with anyone who's gotten stung after the fact--but what it does do is demonstrate one of the first key rules of the Glade in action, and Newt following it. After Ben is stung, he's "banished", and Newt is one of the boys who pushes him into the Maze and leaves him there in the so called banishing, showing the Glade's intense focus on rules and order.

After that, things really start to get moving. Newt sees off Minho and Alby the next day, who go into the Glade to try and find a dead Griever that someone had found the day before. We don't hear from them for a while--in fact, we don't hear from them at all. Newt's left worrying in front of the doors to the Maze as it starts to get dark, and Thomas describes him in the passage with: "Tears moistened Newt's eyes, and Thomas was sure that even within the dark chamber of his memories that were locked away, out of his reach, he'd never seen someone look so sad."

It's just when the doors start to close that Minho and Alby show up, and something is clearly wrong. Alby's been stung, and the Gladers try to scream for Minho to carry him through the doors faster, and when it becomes obvious that Minho and Alby won't make it, it's Thomas who goes and does something incredibly stupid; he goes through the maze doors and locks himself in with the two of them for the night.

Newt's stunned--he'd just lost his former keeper, his boyfriend best friend, and the greenie he was just starting to like all in one blow--but things don't go as badly as he thinks. In fact, the next morning? Alby, Minho, and Thomas all return.

They were the first ones to survive a night in the Maze.

With Alby out of commission, still healing from the sting and the use of something called "Griever Serum"--a sort of cure sent up in the Box--helping to keep him from going as crazy as Ben had, Newt is put in charge of the Glade. He holds a council meeting of the "keepers", the leaders of all of the different jobs in the Glade, in order to decide what to do with Thomas, who did actually break one of the Glade's rules despite saving Alby and Minho's lives. The meeting itself doesn't go down well--Gally, keeper of the Builders, more or less throws a fit, and Minho basically beats the shit out of him, but in the end, Newt makes the decision with the Keepers to have Thomas punished for one night with no food, but allows him to become a Runner and do the exact thing he used to not be allowed to do before--enter the maze. Thomas and Minho end up discovering something called the "Griever Hole", a place where the Grievers actually come from, but that'll come up again later.

Days pass and things happen, a lot of them not so important to Newt's overall story, although he does show to be a fairly capable leader in Alby's abscence, nothing really changes until the Box comes up carrying a new Greenie at a strange time--the second one in a month. And not only is there an extra greenie for the month, but it's a girl. The boys think she might be dead, and all she has with her is a piece of paper crumpled in her fist that says She's the last one ever. Newt orders the med-jacks (their version of doctors) to take her to the infirmary in the homestead, where Alby was being kept as well, until she wakes up from her apparent coma, considering she woke long enough to say Thomas's name, and then passed back out.

The next time we really hear from Newt is after Alby's been through the Changing. It becomes obvious that he hasn't really left his side, and when Alby wakes up, he asks to speak to Thomas. Newt and Alby get into a little bit of an argument and Newt's obviously hurt by it--Alby's Changed, and those who go through the Changing tend to act different. Angrier, crazier. It's inexplicable, at least at the moment, but Newt tells him "Don't expect me to kiss your butt when you come saying sorry", and allows Alby and Thomas to talk.

Newt comes back into the room when Thomas screams for him--it turns out that Alby's started to choke himself, for reasons unknown. It takes Newt and Thomas both to pry his hands free, and when he finally stops, he mentions being controlled, and then immediately apologizes to Newt (which, when you consider Newt tried to kill himself and then Alby doing the same...that's rough, man.) Newt tucks him into bed and is stupidly affectionate to him before he's willing to leave him alone long enough to deal with their other problems.

Things start to go from bad to worse in the Glade, after that. The sky seems to shut down--the sunshine for the plants that keep them alive disappears, and then, on top of that, the Box that lifted greenies and supplies to the Glade has stopped coming as well. The girl awakens and tells everyone that "everything is going to change", and then, on top of that? The Doors to the Maze, the only thing that keeps the Grievers out of the Glade at night, don't open. Suddenly, it's a free for all, and the Gladers are about to become the Grievers' next lunch. Teresa--the girl's name--tells them that the maze is a code, and she, Minho, Thomas and Newt start to look through the maps that Minho has made in his time as a Runner in order to try and find the code. Thomas has a strange hunch about the maps, but they don't get to find out why, at least not right away--as the Gladers huddle inside at night, there's a fire in the Map Room, where all of their hopes of solving the maze and getting out are suddenly dashed.

The Gladers find Alby outside of the burnt map room, but he's knocked out, with a nasty gash in his forehead. Newt takes care of him for a little while, but just when the Gladers think all hope is lost, Newt is the one to tell Thomas that they actually took the maps out of the map room, just to be safe--Alby warned Newt to be careful with the maps back when he first woke up from the Changing. Team Solve The Maze--Newt, Thomas, Minho and Teresa--continues on with their work, and they discover that the patterns that the moving maze walls take every night spell out letters--each week, they spell a different word. FLOAT, CATCH, DEATH, STIFF, and PUSH.

The solving of this puzzle--sort of, anyway--couldn't have come at a better time. Now that the Doors of the Maze are open, the Grievers come at night, sure enough--one by one, they begin to attack the Gladers, until they can take one away and disappear for the night. Newt gets knocked out at one point trying to protect the Gladers, but he survives. It all seems hopeless, and more and more Gladers disappear, but Thomas, sweet, dumb, brave Tommy, decides to leap at one of the Gladers and takes the Changing on personally, in order to remember something about his life before. As it turns out, Thomas learns that he was one of the original Creators of the Maze, which is why Ben tried to kill him when he was Changed--he saw Thomas doing this to them, putting them in the maze. This group was called WICKED--World in Catastrophe Killzone Education Department--and they're finally able to put a name to the Creators besides just the one they made up. WICKED, the acronym, has been on all of their supplies, and even on the "beetle blades", lizardlike robotic creatures that seem to have cameras on them that scurry through the maze walls, letting the Gladers know that someone, somewhere is watching. Thomas also tells the Gladers that the Griever Hole that he and Minho found several days earlier was, in fact, the only way out of the Glade. Either they got out through the hole, or they stayed in the Glade and died trying.

The Glade continues to be attacked, and it becomes clear that the only thing to do, now, is to get out or die trying--so with Thomas's guidance, Newt decides to help mobilize the remaining gladers to do just that. He promises to convince Alby--"Tell him we'll live happily ever after"--and does so, eventually joining the rest of the Gladers at the entrance to the Maze the next day.

It, as expected, is a bloodbath. The Gladers think that maybe if they let one person die--like they had before, in the Glade--or sacrifice themselves to the Grievers, they'll be able to pass through safely. Thomas volunteers--Newt is not happy about it--but in the end, it's not Thomas who does it. It's Alby.

Newt has to be held back when he watches him run off--Thomas says that he has to hold Newt until he stops struggling, as if he wanted to follow him. When told to move on, Newt asks the boys "How can you be so heartless?", as Alby's death has clearly affected him and badly, but it's Minho and Thomas who tell him they have to keep moving, especially considering the Gladers weren't happy with their sacrifice. In the end, half the Gladers die before they reach the Griever Hole, but the remaining twenty or so make it safely through to the other side, into a strange, high tech facility. There, they put in the code--FLOAT CATCH DEATH STIFF--and left confused as to why there's no space for a fifth word. With the Grievers closing in and panic rising, it's dear, sweet Chuck who realizes that "push" is actually for pushing a button which kills the maze.

Stunned, wounded and shocked, the twenty Gladers make their way inside, where they're met with a panel of people in white coats. Supposedly, this has all been a "trial" of some kind, and just when things couldn't get any worse, Gally shows up, clearly having gone through the Changing without the serum. He tries to kill Thomas, but Chuck jumps in front of him, saving Thomas's life and losing his own in the process.

It's a rough blow for all of the Gladers, and they're ushered out of the area as everything turns to chaos; a group of rebels suddenly bust in and start killing the scientists, grabbing the boys and hurrying them outside to a school bus, which carries them off to a nice location, a little school, where they're fed pizza and given beds to sleep in and a moment to try and recover from everything that had just happened.

But, this is the Maze Runner, and breathers are unheard of. The first book ends when all of the "rebels" are found the next morning, hanging from the ceiling, dead. Not only that, but Teresa, who was just with the Gladers, is gone, replaced with a boy named Aris, who is apparently known as "Subject B1: The Partner".

The boys are understandably confused, and as panic begins to settle in, Thomas notices something on the back of Minho's neck--a tattoo. Turns out that Newt has one too, and Thomas reads it to him out loud--"Property of WICKED. Subject A5: The Glue." The excitement dies down after a few days, though, and the boys realize quickly that there's no food. This carries on for a week or so, and the boys are left to starve, it seems, but one day, a bunch of food appears in the strange place.

But that's not the weird part. A man appears to them in the middle of the room, too, with a strange, glass window in front of him, separating him from the Gladers--he introduces himself as Janson, and says that the boys are about to begin their second trial. Should they choose not to follow his instructions and jump through a strange box called a "flat trans", that would move to a new location, they would be killed.

The boys don't take any chances, and Newt, along with the rest of the Gladers, jump through, and that is my canon point.

Personality:

When Newt first makes his way out of the Maze, he discovers that he's been marked with a tattoo. "Subject A5", it read, "The Glue." This goes to say a lot about Newt himself, as he acts as the literal glue to help hold together a sense of familiarity for the so-called Gladers when they made their way out of their original home, a gigantic Maze filled with monsters who were all too willing to tear and rend them limb from limb when given the chance.

Newt is one of the original Gladers, a small group of twenty, of whom were chosen to organize the place that they lived into some kind of society. Newt was one of the first to take charge--as such, he displays capable leadership qualities and has long been the "second in command" of the well-organized Glade. Newt has a strong belief in order and isn't afraid to discipline the Gladers to the fiercest degree, but he decides things with a fair hand, and is equal to those he likes and dislikes, including punishing Thomas for running into the maze and voting one of his old, dear friends to Banishment, which was their version of a death sentence. Presumably, Newt helped to set up the entire system of the Glade, including farming, butchering, and of course "Running", or searching the walls of the maze at night--he's a stickler for details and is often jokingly called "glade mom" by the fandom, because between him and the leader, Alby, they take care of the boys around them. He tends to be patient (despite grousing) and levelheaded, and uses his brain more often than he uses his fists. That's not to be said Newt doesn't have a temper--he can be stern and snaps occasionally, but Newt's renowned for his ability to keep a cool head. It's part of what makes him a good second in command, simply because he's able to balance Alby's temper with his own.

Because of this, Newt is one of the most approachable of the Gladers--give a little poke to his exterior and you'll find a soft, squishy center. (Sort of.) Newt helps to teach Thomas on his first arrival a little bit about the Glade, and gives him advice when he won't stop asking questions. In fact, sometimes he seems to be the only one willing to give answers--he has a soft spot for people in need, and is often seen helping out the other Gladers whenever he can. This helps solidify his subject name as The Glue, simply because he's been a constant, steady presence in many of the Gladers' lives, as kind of a rough-and-tumble welcome committee, through every tragedy they've withstood. He tends to be sarcastic and "swears" (at least, Glader swears--"shuck" is a popular word in his vocabulary) with the best of them, but he has a big heart, a valuable asset in the situation that the Gladers find themselves in, both in the Maze and out of it. He cares dearly for his close friends, Thomas, Minho and Alby in particular, and is seen tending to Alby like a worried mother hen when he gets hurt, to the point of arguing when he's asked to be sent out of the room he's being kept in. Despite how some of the other Gladers can get on his nerves (we're looking at you, Gally), Newt generally handles them with a clear head and the same amount of respect he'd give to someone he really likes...usually.

That being said, being in the Glade for that long of a time takes a toll. Newt was originally a "Runner", one of the people who investigated the unsolvable maze every night, but trying to find an answer to something that was nigh unsolvable--hopeless, even--began to itch at his psyche, and as the depression and guilt and doubt began to weigh heavy on his shoulders, Newt attempted suicide by jumping off of the massive walls of the Maze.

We don't learn about his suicide until the third book, and it really is a shock, simply because seeing Newt as a little grouchy is one thing, but suicidal is another. He tells Thomas, point blank, "I hated every day in that place." Newt is the kind of person to hide feelings like that, letting resentment and hatred and bitterness grow deep inside of him until, eventually, the cork pops and something like that happens. He doesn't have a lot of hope, and it really takes an actual change in the Glade--the arrival of Thomas--for Newt to find something to believe in to find a way out of the Maze. He puts his belief into other people and uses them as his strength, often. If left alone, Newt would crumble, simply because he needs to be able to care for and think with other people instead of do it on his own.

Since he jumped, Newt has always been bitter and angry at the Maze, at the "Creators" who run it, and all of these feelings get shoved deeper inside of him, because part of going through the "trials" that they're put through means that he gets no time to mourn his dead friends, or to linger on his thoughts. He's forced to carry on no matter what, which is something he does well--despite watching his friends, people he's known for as long as he can remember, literally--die around him, Newt gets up and keeps limping forward. We find out he's an incredibly likely candidate to receive "the Flare", the disease that's been killing off most of humanity, simply because he continues to use his brain to try and problem solve everything he can and keep the Gladers working together as a group--and as one of the only ones in the group who isn't immune, Newt does end up catching it.

All of this guilt and depression makes him a bit self-sacrificing, as well. When Newt loses hope, having been told he has the flare, instead of reacting viscerally, he accepts that he's going to die, and even basically begs the rest of his friends not to find him when he's taken away to live with the other "Cranks", the infected. Call it bravery or fear, or maybe just getting what he wanted, but he makes it clear that if he ever becomes as bad as some of the Cranks--who literally fall to cannibalism--that he wants to be killed, and he places his trust in one of his friends to do the job for him. While this is beyond my canon point, it brings an important fact about Newt to light; he was, in fact, so miserable that when the chance to die came to him, instead of being upset and trying to fight it (especially when he was given the chance to, by the other gladers), Newt simply went along with it and resigned himself to his fate.

For Newt, this place might as well just be another trial. It may not be WICKED, but that doesn't matter--he's so used to being beat down that this is actually kind of like a break for him. Just like he did in the Maze, just like he will do in the Scorch, he'll keep everything bitter and resentful inside and use the skills that he has to help people in the Tranquility as much as he can.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
First off, Newt has basically been conditioned for this kind of life; in the Glade they had limited running water and electricity, very little technology,and he was used as a lab rat for a series of trials run by his own "Creators". Because of this, Newt is incredibly adaptable and can work with most anything you throw at him. He can withstand extreme heat, desert-like conditions, terrifying thunderstorms, zombies, and pretty much anything you throw at him, because it can't be worse than WICKED. Right? Right?

Newt is a strong leader, with some physical fighting capabilities; he's shown to be capable with rudimentary weaponry, and at one point, guns. Newt is very smart and more of a tactician than a battler, but that doesn't mean he isn't willing to step up to the plate when necessary--as a former Runner, a so called "war veteran", he's good at thinking quickly on his feet.

However, he's not really great at moving quickly on said feet, thanks to his limp. It's not debilitating, but it's completely obvious in every movement he makes, and it does slow him down greatly. Newt also has kind of a damaged psyche, in that his tendencies towards being suicidal are dangerously balanced with some kind of hope or a need to move on. He possibly has PTSD related to his shitty, shitty situation, as well.

Inventory:

• one large sweatshirt, clearly not his own
• standard glade clothes; an orange tanktop, pants that don't fit, comfortable shoes
• one machete + holster for said machete, leather, handmade
• one small side bag full of bandages and other sundry health things.

Appearance:


Newt is played by Thomas Brodie Sangster in the movie, and it's a choice I'm perfectly satisfied with! Although in the books he was described as having long hair, everything else is spot on, so I'll continue using TBS because he's perfect and I love him. ♥


Age: 17...ish.

AU Clarification: N/A.

S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
This place is way too calm so far and it's putting Newt on edge--with a name like Tranquility, Newt shouldn't be surprised, but the entire place is making him antsy. No grievers, no screaming noises, nothing. just this faint whirring sound that Newt thinks is probably going to drive him crazy before the day's up.

Having explored a little of the ship, now, Newt's found himself in the oxygen gardens, hands in the pockets of a too big sweatshirt, staring up at the tall trees. It's not walls, per se--no, the ship seemed to have enough of those by itself, but the entire place really just did nothing but make Newt feel...well, trapped. It was a familiar feeling, pounding in the back of his head, phrases like there's no escape and everything is hopeless, things that haunted him before he came to the Tranquility and, now, it seems, things that will haunt him after. It would be so easy, he thinks, just for a second.

Climb up one of those trees. Newt wonders if maybe he used to climb trees--it sounds like something he'd like to do, maybe. Hand over hand into the bark, up and up and up, until he could see everything.

He did that in the Maze, climbed halfway up a wall and looked out at everything he could see and cried. It still wasn't enough, because there was only more ivy, more twisting and turning pathways, Grievers rumbling in the distance, and he'd let go of the wall and dropped, twenty feet from the ground and ten seconds of flying, blissful freedom.

He woke afterwards to Alby dragging him out, and a pain so immeasurable, he couldn't describe it in words; his leg throbs in memory and Newt reaches down to rub it, his first motion in thirty some odd minutes, breaking his concentration. For every second that those trees looked tempting--the crack he'd make hitting the ground, the end of all of this pain and suffering, he'd be with Alby again--

Newt shakes his head, violently, and turns his gaze away from the trees, stuffing his hands back into his pockets and moving to walk out of the gardens. He'd promised Alby he wouldn't, and so he won't.

(But, with every day that passes, Newt longs for it--the flight, the freedom, the end. The Tranquility, in the end, isn't that different from home, and it's killing him.)


Comms Sample:
[ the transmission comes on to reveal a teenager with blonde hair, leaning forward a little too close into the video before he pulls back, muttering a low-- ] Bloody hell. [ before he actually goes to address the network at large. ]

Sorry bout being a proper greenie bout this, but--my name's Newt. Would rather go by a name than a number. [ even if it's not his real name, but. newt at least sounds friendly, if a little exasperated by his entire situation--then again, what else is new? he still offers the camera a little bit of a smile, brown eyes twinkling. ] I just jumped through a flat trans and ended up in bloody space. I guess this place ain't WICKED--nobody seems to know a shucking thing about it, 'sides me, so I guess I just had a question for you. Two, actually.

One-- [ newt holds up a finger ] Are there any problems with solar flares here? With the ship, or in general--it's important. Second, for the love of everything good and shucky, have you seen my friend Tommy? Goes by Thomas, I guess. Brown hair, 'bout yay high, probably runnin around askin a lot of questions and stickin his nose into things he shouldn't be.

Thanks proper. [ he waves, then there's a little fidgeting before the feed finally goes out. ]