#amber davies | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

desmon1995 · 1 month ago

Text

Ajax: From Toxic Masculinity to Defiant Resistance – A Character Study

I never realized just how much of an impact Ajax left on *The Warriors* until I really dove into the series. Ajax is one of the most memorable characters in the original film, embodying toxic masculinity in a way that's hard to miss. From bullying Cowboy, making crass comments about women, and throwing out homophobic slurs, he's abrasive, aggressive, and power-hungry. His few redeeming moments, like defending Cowboy from the Furies, quickly vanish when he falls for a honey trap set by a female cop, leading to his arrest and brutal beating. What’s fascinating is how the adaptation in the concept album reinterprets Ajax while staying true to the spirit of the character. Turning Ajax into a woman could've gone wrong, but Davis and Lin-Manuel Miranda managed to preserve her fire while making her complex and sympathetic. Female Ajax still has a short fuse and runs her mouth, but her aggression is often protective, aimed at shielding the weaker members of the crew. She's the unspoken second-in-command after Swan, earning genuine respect from characters like Fox. Her dynamic with Swan is nuanced—there’s rivalry but also mutual respect. She doesn’t blindly follow orders and openly questions the wisdom of running from the summit, showing early signs of resistance. Her breaking point comes after the harrowing encounter with the Turnbulls, where she nearly snaps. The brilliance of her arc is in how the album frames her anger—not as something to be suppressed but as a survival tool. This comes to a head during the Furies fight, where she leads the charge, encouraging the girls to stop running and fight back. The beast within is unleashed, setting the stage for her tragic encounter with Barnes, played by James Remar, the original Ajax—a stroke of casting genius. Barnes is the embodiment of institutional abuse, a corrupt cop preying on vulnerable women. Some critics didn’t like this change, but it’s grounded in harsh reality. Studies show police abuse against sex workers is alarmingly common ([source](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9365085/)). Barnes wields his badge like a weapon, making him more dangerous than any gang. Ajax’s decision to swing at Barnes isn’t just personal—it’s symbolic. After a night of running and suppressing who she is, she takes a stand, knowing the system will never punish him. The tragedy is that she pays the price while he walks free, a dark reflection of her movie counterpart’s arrest but with deeper stakes. Her final act of defiance resonates because she fights back when no one else can or will. The song gives her the last word, even as the cops taunt her—a fitting tribute to someone who refuses to be silenced. In today’s climate, Ajax feels more relevant than ever. Her evolution from a cautionary tale of toxic masculinity to a symbol of resistance hits hard. With more people fed up with bending the knee, she’s become a figure of rebellion with teeth—a fierce reminder that sometimes, you have to swing back.

#warriors musical #lin manuel miranda #eisa davis #sexism #patriarchy #all cops are bastards #analysis post #Ajax is eternal and so is Amber Gray

38 notes · View notes

chriscdcase95 · 7 days ago

Text

Until Dawn updated headcanons: + Unlife is Strange/Screaming Until Dawn

The following headcanons are included in my AO3 stories; Unlife is Strange and Screaming Until Dawn. Both fics are part of the same “verse”.

Much of these were written down before the remake allowed us to save Josh. Because of this, Josh becoming the Makkapitew’s new host is canon as far as this “verse” is concerned.

Grab your popcorn. This is whole world building.

1. First things first, this bit was something taught to me growing up about the wendigo. I’m not sure if it’s a widespread belief or a regional/local one — especially since details vary between bands and regions.

Anyways what I was taught was that if you kill a wendigo without taking the right “precautions” — either burning their heart or cutting up their body and burying them at different locations — their spirit will fixate on you and actively haunt you out of revenge.

They will always know where you are and everything about you; your name, family, home; your fears and weaknesses; and they will use you against you. And there’s nowhere you can run where it won’t eventually follow. There's nowhere you can hide that they don't already know.

Enter the Makkapitew, an already powerful and vicious wendigo spirit which has possessed two people with grudges against the cast. Because of this, it holds a special grudge. Simply killing them just isn't gonna cut it. It's especially fixated on Sam, for so close to Josh and Hannah, and being the one who set off the explosion that killed it.

Following the events of “They All Live”, the Makkapitew spirit soon followed them from the Blackwood Pines and became a regular supernatural nemesis in their lives; either as a spirit or through Josh’s body. Sometimes the Makkapitew is a genuine threat or menace, other times it’s a petty annoyance out to ruin their day.

It’s like Eobard Thawne that way.

youtube

In it’s first rampage the Makkapitew tracked them down to their hometown, and slaughtered several of their friends, neighbors and family members. Sam tried to reach out to “Josh”, and got non lethally mauled for her trouble — Sam has a few bite/scratch scars on her stomach, side, calf and thigh that haven’t quite faded.

After this, everyone save for Chris and Ashley came to believe Josh is well and truly gone.

2. Crossover Headcanon: Following the initial massacre, “The Blackwood Seven” are reached out to by the FBC (Control).

They are ultimately put into a witness protection sort of deal, with one of the catches being they’d do “Scout Work”; being civilian eyes and ears on a few ongoing cases. They were assigned to the Arcadia Bay case, soon befriending characters like Max, Chloe, Kate, Victoria and the vampiric Rachel Amber.

They soon become field agents, but during Screaming (set in October of 2016), Sam is taking a sabbatical to focus on college. Because of their involvement, the UD cast are recurring/supporting characters in Unlife is Strange; and the LIS characters are recurring/supporting characters in Screaming Until Dawn.

At the time of Screaming, Mike and Matt are taking an overseas assignment — something about containing a vampire nest in Iraq that was discovered in 2003, and now starting to leak; while Emily was coming back from working off the coast of Japan, looking into and covering up sightings of a “sea dragon” near Odo Island.

She brought with her pictures that would make Nessie/Champ enthusiasts “Mess their pants.”

3. Following the events of “They All Live” Josh is thrown under the bus by law enforcement and the media.

With the wendigo having been covered up during the investigation, the FBC and RCMP compiled all available evidence, which ultimately points at Josh as being a wannabe cannibal serial killer; going as far as to implicate him as being behind Hannah and Beth’s disappearance, with armchair psycho-analysts painting him as having an incestuous fixation on them.

The nail in the coffin against him was Josh’s teeth marks and DNA found on the cops he slaughtered, and on Sam after her attack; Jack’s severed head, Beth’s severed head; a shrine for his sisters; and the traps he set up throughout the lodge; videos recordings of Ashley and Chris being caught in these traps; and Sam taking her bath. For this Josh was labeled as an inhuman monster by the public, and his parents disappeared from the public. As a result, Bob’s Hollywood career is up in smoke.

His friends could try to speak out for Josh’s favor, but were coerced into going along with the narrative by Director Zachariah Trench; who pointed out to Sam that publicly defending the guy who recorded her bathing, drugged her and physically assaulted her, is not a good look. He gave the same kind of lecture to Chris and Ashley, pointing out how they were the only other two personally victimized by Josh.

As a result, the Blackwood Seven never speak about the case publicly, only talking about it to a select few friends who they trust with the truth.

It’s because of this, most of Josh’s friends write him off as truly being gone after his possession. If there was a way to bring him back, it’s not like he had much of a life waiting for him. As another result, Josh’s case is often publicly compared to that of Mark Jefferson Nathan Prescott, due to the events of LIS occurring not too long before Hannah and Beth disappeared.

The comparisons are usually made by those overly sympathetic to Nathan, and overly demonize Josh. Ironically it’s because of these comparisons, the Blackwood Seven were assigned to the Arcadia Bay investigation.

Much of Screaming is gonna deal with the fallout of what happened to the Washingtons.

4. Shipping/sexuality headcanons: I write Jessica, Emily, Mike and Matt as being bisexual, and Sam as a lesbian.

Mike is still coming to terms with his bisexuality, which is ironic because he’s normally supportive of his bi/gay friends. At the time of Screaming, Jess and Emily have been trying to pair Mike and Matt up for a whole now, often pulling strings to get the Bureau to put them on field missions together.

While Sam isn’t dating dating anyone, as of this post has a regular “Friends With Benefits relationship with Emily and Jessica, though it’s transparent their actual feelings are more than platonic. But following the events of UD, Sam took up a habit of casual flings and hookups as trauma cope.

She usually keeps it to consenting sapphic friends in her inner circle, with boundaries in place; mainly friends she made from Arcadia Bay. But her heart goes to Jessica and Emily. Sam, Jess and Emily are the main OT3 of Screaming Until Dawn. One of the inciting incidents is that the three are planning a “Girl’s Trip” together.

5. In this setting, Jack/The Stranger is not related to Jack Fiddler. While I’m not opposed to the Famous Relative/Ancestor trope, knowing the IRL history of Jack Fiddler, it was waaay too touchy. It helps that it’s not something explicitly mentioned in the game, therefore can be overlooked.

Here, Jack is a member of the Dibikad family, a minor but recurring Oji-Cree family I feature in my stories, and the last of the Pâhkwêkan (Night Owls) — a party of vampire/werewolf hunters formed during the Colonial era.

Their backstory goes that there was a vampire that lived in the Great Lakes Region for centuries, historically thought to be a Viking settler. For the most part, he was benign and left the natives alone, but when settlers started colonizing the Americas, they brought with them vampires and werewolves.

This “Viking settler” began teaching the natives about these creatures and their weaknesses. The Pâhkwêkan was soon formed from these teachings. Unfortunately, the Pâhkwêkan were so effective in dealing with vampires and werewolves among the settlers, that Colonists used their “raids” as an excuse to really crack down on the natives.

By the 1890’s, the Pâhkwêkan were down to one faction in Alberta. By then, a young and overzealous Pâhkwêkan hunter named Maxwell Dibikad led a raid in Blackwood Forest; erroneously coming to believe that wendigo were a type of vampire. As recompense, the Makkapitew slaughtered all but Maxwell, who was left crippled and forced to disband the Pâhkwêkan lest it returns continuously for his family and community.

In the present day, the Dibikads' want nothing to do with the Pâhkwêkan save for Jack, and his niece Vanessa - another recurring character in Unlife, who became handler to the Blackwell Seven.

6. In Screaming Until Dawn, Sam is sort of an alternate counter to Kirby Reed. Their connection is gradually revealed when they experience glimpses of each other’s lives as “dreams.” In 2011, Sam has a dream of being Kirby during Scream 4; and in 2015, Kirby dreams of the events of Until Dawn from Sam’s perspective.

For much of the story, Sam and Kirby are gonna be seeing/experiencing more of their lives through each other’s eyes; starting when Sam gets calls from a Ghostface repeatedly calling her “Kirby”, and is now targeting her friends; and Kirby repeatedly being followed a presence calling her “Sam”.

I also considered giving also Jessica some ties to Scream characters, but I haven’t made any final decision on that.

Gif unrelated.

I also had a joke in mind where Mike similarly “dreamt” of being the MCU’s Grant Ward. Somewhere in the multiverse, Ward dreamt of being Mike.

7. Since Bob Washington was a Hollywood director, Screaming Until Dawn includes one of his most popular movies. It’s not plot relevant or anything, but there for world building and a running gag.

In 2002, Bob directed a horror/fantasy swashbuckling movie called Wittebane — based on the Connecticut folk legends of two witch hunting brothers. It’s not the first adaptation of the legend, but it was one of the more popular ones, for its subversiveness and its love story.

The movie put a romantic spin on one of the brothers, Caleb (Ben Affleck) and the witch Evelyn (Winona Ryder); and the brother Phillip (Mark Whalberg) being an outright villain were most adaptations portray him as a tragic failure protagonist at best.

It was released by Disney and considered one of their riskier movies, like Pirates of the Caribbean or Haunted Mansion, it was one of those movies that are clearly written for a mature audience and given a PG-13 rating. But because it’s Disney, it’s marketed as a family film anyways, and a whole lot of kids bared witness to the eyebrow raising “waterfall scene”.

Said scene caused “childhood lesbian awakening” memes across early 2010’s Tumblr. Wittebane also had an award bait song called “The Piece of You (I Carry With Me)” sung by Michelle Branch. Basically an equivalent to “My Heart Will Go On” or “There You’ll Be”.

It was especially popular in the brothers hometown of Gravesfield, with there used to be yearly showings every Halloween. But after the events of Until Dawn and the controversy surrounding the Washington’s, it became a really heated debate of separating the art from the artist.

As it happens, when the Blackwood Seven and co were conscripted into the FBC, they learned that Wittebane's original writer was a supposed practicing witch, who disappeared and reappeared from a place called “the demon realm” as a teenager in the 90's.

The FBC seemingly had the writer's memory wiped, and have been trying to access that realm ever since.

8. Pretty big lore drop.

In Unlife is Strange, Mount Washington/Madahee was previously nicknamed as “Chepaiyikumik” (“Grave”), being thought of as a mass grave with a dark history. Much of that history is intentionally covered up and lost to time, to the point it was mostly forgotten about by the Colonial period.

Dating all the way back to “Fuck if I know BC” — estimated to be the time of giants, titans and the old gods — what would become Blackwood Pines was a hotspot “The Children of Ithaqua”. They were a cult that spanned across what would become North America and Eastern Eurasia, but has mostly reduced to a fractured memory.

In a semi-related fic, Loves Sacrifices — Ithaqua is one of the Greater Scope Villains. The “human” son and mediator to the King in Yellow, Ithaqua taught humanity to follow his example in decadence and vice. There’s also a UD cameo where a character makes contact with Ithaqua’s spirit, and witnesses Jessica’s rant at the cabin from Ithaqua’s perspective.

Ut’s also implied he taught early humanity the concept of colonization. When his father is slain, Ithaqua was bound to another world and cannot directly interact with this one. Through his cults practices, it’s believed many cultural taboos were formed — EG, “Hey, this evil shit is what Ithaqua and his followers practiced. Yeah, let’s NOT follow their example, kay-kay ?”

Ithaqua’s present followers exist by the 2010's, but are hardly the apocalyptic threat they were way back when. They exist under the guise of Christian based institutions, including prosperity gospel/quiverfull preachers and televangelists — obsessed with making money and “breeding prosperity.”

They don't really believe in Ithaqua as an actual entity anymore, and more of a concept to live under. But as of Until Dawn, they are keeping an eye out for the Blackwood Seven.

And they're not the only ones watching...

10 notes · View notes