Thinking about how I would write an adult Scooby-Doo series, because I think it can be done.
The first thing I’d do is make the characters actually be adults. Still young, but adults, in the mid to late 20s range. Mystery Inc. is a private detective type business that they run together. In this universe, the supernatural/ghosts/etc are real, but not necessarily common, so when they take on a case, the culprit might be a person disguised as a monster, or it might actually be a real ghost. The stakes can be higher; sometimes a bad guy is legitimately trying to kill them. Sometimes the mystery they’re trying to solve is a murder. Sometimes they actually get hurt on their cases.
Fred: the core of Fred’s character should be that he’s incredibly kind. Like, give a stranger the shirt off his back kind. The “Fred can’t talk to potential clients because he might take a case for free and we need to eat” kind. He’s an honest and good person and sometimes gets himself into trouble because he assumes other people are too. While he’s not very good at reading people or noticing ulterior motives, he’s brilliant when it comes to mechanical or engineering type stuff, so he’s the one who keeps the mystery machine running, builds their gadgets, and of course, designs the traps.
Daphne: she comes from old money, and her parents absolutely despise her life choices, to the point where they haven’t officially disowned her, but they have basically cut her off, so she doesn’t actually have access to any family money. Growing up wealthy has granted her a variety of skills, including speaking multiple languages, horseback riding, and fencing. She’s very into fashion and jewelry (even if she can’t afford it anymore) and has extensive knowledge of both that can occasionally provide a vital clue in a case. And even though her parents have cut her off, Daphne still has a wide network of contacts she can ask for favors sometimes, because she’s personable, and people tend to like her. Daphne is also very emotionally intelligent, and is usually the one who can spot when someone is lying to them.
Side note - I ship Fred and Daphne, so I think I would start them off as an established couple for this universe. Dating, engaged, married, I don’t care. They are stupidly in love, ride or die for each other. There’s no will they, won’t they, no worries about cheating. They are in a healthy, happy, loving relationship, and no one (not even Daphne’s disapproving parents) are going to mess that up for them.
Velma: she is the forensics nerd who sometimes gets super excited about the wrong thing at the wrong time (”He was mummified in seconds? That’s so cool!” “Velma! His wife is standing right there!” “Oh. Sorry.”). She’s not purposely insensitive, she just gets laser focused on her work and forgets to filter herself sometimes. She’s also the one who can get so fixated on solving whatever mystery they’re working on, she’s willing to bend or maybe break laws. Is breaking and entering really so bad? Not if it gets them answers.
Shaggy: he is still the comic relief, but he’s the comic relief by being the only person in the group that actually has common sense. He manages the business’s finances, he’s the only one who knows how to cook, and the others tease him for being a coward sometimes, but Shaggy maintains that if a ghost with an axe is coming for you, running is the only sensible option. He should also have a range of random knowledge that sounds useless, but sometimes saves the day (ex ventriloquism, origami, the history of spoons, etc).
Scooby: as this is a universe where supernatural creatures exist, Scooby is an ancient eldritch type being that took a shine to Shaggy when he was a kid, and took the form of a talking dog to befriend and hang out with him. Aside from the talking dog bit and not aging, he never uses his powers in a way that anyone notices. The audience is not told upfront that Scooby is an ancient eldritch being; it should slowly be hinted at throughout the series so the audience put it together, but the characters never realize it. Scooby genuinely considers Shaggy to be his best friend, and cares about the rest of the gang too.
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A trip down memory lane! Though the tower seems to have changed…
Celestial tower! Built during the direct aftermath of the Founding Unovan Civil War, it remains a cultural landmark in memory of those lost in the fire and storm.
Time has dulled the scars left behind by the twin dragons. Today, the tower is primarily used as a mausoleum (the preferred method of burial are urns) and, well, a tourism site. Legend says if you climb to the top of the tower and ring the bell, you can lay your ghosts to rest. But mostly? You can ring a GIANT bell.
Course, you gotta GET to that bell first.
Masterpost for more pokemon shenanigans here!
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Part 3
[1][2][4]
And he missed the mark. Sometimes something that works well for one person doesn’t really fit right for another. Where Donnie feels more comfortable categorizing and ordering things into understandable data, Raph feels more relaxed when he can step away from mountains of text or numbers and simply be.
Perhaps there is a way to meet in the middle?
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so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.
first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.
it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.
and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.
you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.
and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.
your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.
in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.
in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.
so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.
you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.
once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.
and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"
you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?
hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!
you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.
we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?
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