HC: Mystery Gang
The gang's all here! (Except Scoob, but this is mostly a shipping piece.)
Inspired by all the content coming across my dash, I decided to whip up a late 50th birthday for these characters; Velma Dinkley, Fred Jones, Daphne Blake and Shaggy Rogers. The OG meddling kids.
I've always loved this crew. When I was younger, my favorite aunt and I would spend the entire day in our pajamas and binge Scooby Doo movies. My favorites as a kid were Ghoul School and Cyberchase. Those are some of my fave memories with that aunt, who I recently found out isn't as good of a person as I had thought. Scooby Doo might seem childish, but these guys were my childhood, y'know? They were important to me, and they still are.
(I've actually been thinking about making an Ao3 fic about em. Can you believe it)
Down to the headcanons
- They're a polyam quad! Bi Daphne, lesbian Velma (is somewhat into guys a tad bit, she just prefers lesbian), bi (and trans) Fred, and pan Shaggy.
- Velma's Hispanic! Specifically Latina. Shaggy's half-Mexican, half-Irish. While we're at it; Daph is Asian and Fred is an all American boyo.
- Daphne's Catholic and Shaggy and Velma are Jewish
- Fred has a distant relationship with his adoptive father, ever since his adopted mom left them when Fred was a little girl. Their bond was pretty decayed already when Fred came out in his young teen years, but it only got worse from then. Fred's dad doesn't abuse him physically, or verbally; he's present, sometimes, but not in an emotional sense.
- Fred has a lot of learning disabilities, including dyslexia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. This made it hard for him in class, which is how he met Daphne and Velma in early middle school. Daph and Vel were competing for the smartest of the grade; as an attempt to get the girls to be friendly to each other, they were both assigned to tutor Fred. Fred was, and still is, a well-meaning dumbass that drinks respect women juice, so both girls warmed up to him and his attempts to get them to be friends.
They were soon assigned to Shaggy, too, who was failing his classes because he was taking too many "sick" days, when in fact he was too anxiety-filled to get out of bed and face anyone.
The group quickly became besties and shared their full selves. Velma was there when Shaggy admitted to his parents about his anxiety, and they all went to choose a support dogo for him. (Scooby's legally Shaggy's emotional support dog, but Shaggy doesn't mind sharing.)
- As young teens, the group originally went by the Scooby Doo Detective Agency, before changing it to Mystery Inc/the Mystery Gang.
- Fred wears two shirts to better hide his breasts and help his dysphoria. His white shirt is actually a sweater, and under it is a button-up fancy blue long-sleeved shirt.
- Daphne is his hairdresser and fashion advisor, as she is for all of them. Daph always makes sure that whatever she suggests is within their comfort range.
- Shaggy has a panic disorder. Scooby Doo is his emotional support animal. Shaggy uses prescription marijuana to help with it.
- Daphne is always trying to prove herself (example; always running into danger and getting kidnapped) because her parents always compared her, the youngest, to her big sisters. Her sisters were successful, wealthy and independent women, while typical Daph had to keep getting saved by her partners. She loves feeling important, like she's the focus of everyone's attention. She tries to excel at everything, but is slowly starting to get better at not sprinting blindly into danger. (You can thank the Gang for that.)
- Daphne's mother is a celebrity supermodel by most days, acholic by night/some days. Her dad is a famous author. Neither of them approve of most of the things in Daphne's life; bisexuality, polyamory, mystery solving, Velma, Fred, Shaggy, Scooby... The list goes on.
- Daphne is an honorary member of the Hex Girls. She shows up sometimes when the triad needs another voice on stage. (Also, the Hex Girls are lesbians.)
- Velma's the mom friend.
- Velma Dinkley has always had a fixation for mysteries and figuring things out. She enjoys puzzles, crosswords, riddles, detective novels, serial killer documentaries, and horror movies. (She can always guess who the killer is.)
- She is fluent in Latin, Spanish, Mandarin and Morse Code.
- Velma's incredibly flexible, having taken martial arts and gymnastics as a child.
- This isn't headcanon, but I feel the need to mention it, as I don't think a lot of people know this is actually canon in multiple movies. Velma has a little sister named Madelyn, also known as "Doe Eyes Dinkley". Madelyn is a stage magician and is in clown college. She is an extroverted woman with a giant crush on Shaggy, who she continues to pine over. Both sisters are very overprotective of each other and mostly have a friendly relationship.
- The Gang eventually drop out of their shared community college to pursue mysteries, and to get away from their disapproving parents and overwhelming responsibilities. Velma does decide to take up online courses to get her degree.
(The Mystery Gang, including football jock Fred and track captain Shaggy, could have went to more prestigious schools, the girls because of their smarts and the boys on sport scholarships, but they were pressured to stay where their parents could see them.)
And that's my headcanons for them. I didn't mention some stuff because it's canon, but I'll recap real quick; Velma has coulrophobia (clown phobia) and aquaphobia (fear of water/sea), Scooby has an excitable, somewhat annoying nephew (Scrappy Doo), they're junior detectives/amateur sleuths, Fred's allergic to cats, they live in the Mystery Van, road trip for life, Shaggy's real name is Norville, Shag was briefly a vegetarian, Shaggy can do voice impressions, he was once a junior pilot, Daphne's a black belt in karate, Daph has a motorcycle, is an amateur musician, was a journalist a couple times, the Gang occasionally break up and go their seperate ways until a long-yearned for mystery pops up and serves as an excuse to get back together, those deals.
Peace! ✌️
Reference by @croxovergoddess;
Literally only 2 progress pics;
