a scooby-doo origin story where Daphne, Fred, Velma, and Shaggy are all serving detention together and none of them (save for maybe Fred and Daphne) have ever really talked before, but they talk in detention. they have fun, they’re bonding, it’s a real Breakfast Club situation, and as detention ends they’re walking home and they see a dog digging through the garbage of a local restaurant
he’s big, but he seems sweet and he’s obviously hungry, so the gang approaches him to see if he has a collar. Shaggy manages to get to him first, and the dog immediately takes to him, giving him a big dog kiss and cuddling up to him, but the dog seems to like all of them
upon finding he doesn’t have a collar, Shaggy, scratching behind his ears, rhetorically asks, “What’s your name, buddy?”
and the dog answers, “Scooby-Dooby-Doo!”
after a minute of freaking the FUCK out and asking each other “y'all heard that, right?” the kids decide to take the dog (who they immediately start calling Scooby-Doo, Scoob, or Scooby for short) home, and find that not only can the dog talk, he displays human-level intelligence and is easily frightened. when they ask where he came from, he doesn’t seem to know, but when they walk past an old, abandoned shopping complex on the edge of town, he completely freaks out…and there are weird noises coming from that complex at night….and some suspicious sightings….
the first mystery they investigate together is the mystery of what in God’s name is going on here
@imdefnotvanessa thank you for giving me indirect permission to talk more <3
Fred: He has never been in trouble before in his life, he’s every teacher’s favorite and an all-around Very Nice Boy. He got detention for fighting and everyone is SHOCKED… until they find out that Fred was trying to stand up for a younger student who was getting bullied. Fred wanted to resolve things with words, things escalated, and Fred punched the bully in the face… and broke his own hand doing so. He instantly started apologizing and confessed the minute a teacher turned up to ask what was happening. He then started crying. Everyone who hears the full story is like, “Yeah, that makes more sense.” Technically he should’ve gotten suspended for punching someone, but because he’s such a nice, well-liked kid and it was a first time offense and he WAS defending someone, he got off with a week’s worth of detention and a call home. He’s in detention like “oh God I’m a CRIMINAL who has brought SHAME upon my WHOLE FAMILY” and everyone else is like, “First time?”
Shaggy: He’s generally good at gym class, he doesn’t mind the running or the team building games, but when he found out he’d have to play dodgeball, he said, with all due respect to the coach, he was Not Doing That Shit. He cut a week’s worth of gym class and got two weeks’ worth of detention in exchange.
Velma: She’s pretty much singlehandedly pulling up the school’s collective GPA, but cannot resist contradicting her teachers. This can range from “I respectfully disagree with your interpretation of Arthur Miller” to “You realize you are literally teaching us white supremacist rhetoric, right?” The latter tends to land her in trouble. Also has a habit of sneaking banned books into the school library where she volunteers, but no one can prove it’s her and even if they could, no one’s sure how to go about punishing someone for GIVING the school stuff. The librarian really likes her but can’t do much to protect her from the less progressive members of the faculty.
Daphne: Her family’s incredibly influential in politics and donates a lot to the school, so Daphne can usually skate consequences for texting in class, skipping class, showing up late, and turning in her work late. She’s very friendly and charming but a lousy student. However, there’s one very persistent first-year teacher who recognizes how smart she is and thinks someone needs to push her to actually do something with her intelligence and skills. This teacher is the one who likes Daphne best, but is also the hardest on her and the only one to give her detention, her parents be dammed. Daphne respects them for it and is usually willing to take it in stride, even as her mom threatens to make a stink about it.
Other ideas for this concept:
None of the kids like to say they “own” Scooby as he’s obviously his own person, but legally he’s Shaggy’s dog and lives with him. (Fred lives in an apartment that doesn’t allow dogs, Velma’s mom is allergic, and Daphne’s parents would never let an animal in their house.) However, they all share responsibility for taking care of him; Daphne paid for his license and registration, Fred comes over to walk him a couple times a week, and Velma brings him food from her place sometimes.
The fact that Scooby can talk is the world’s worst kept secret. The kids TRY to keep it under wraps for his safety but it’s not going well.
The kids gradually come to accept that something supernatural is going on, in this order: Shaggy, Daphne, Fred, and then finally Velma, who is still not convinced Scoob isn’t an alien.
Daphne’s father is a local politician now running for governor and it sucks, she’s actively praying he’ll lose. Her mom is a very successful lobbyist and spends a lot of time in DC. Daphne barely tells them anything about her personal life.
Fred’s family is working class, his mom teaches at the school and his dad is a mechanic at a local garage. Fred works there too on weekends. His parents are super sweet and supportive.
Shaggy’s parents are super chill, one of his moms is a mildly successful author who waits tables during the day, his other mom works as a dentist and is always on his case about flossing.
Velma’s parents are both college professors, her mom is a lauded physicist and her dad’s a historian currently on sabbatical to write a book. They love that Velma wants to follow them into academia but also encourage her to make friends.
The Mystery Machine is this ANCIENT RV Fred’s uncle gave him for his birthday, Fred has been fixing it for ages and ages and it’s finally in working condition again.
Daphne has a credit card but her parents can see everything she buys so the gang treats it as an “emergencies only” thing because Mr. and Mrs. Blake would NOT approve of her solving mysteries.
i’ve had this comic sketched out for months but only decided to finish it now, it’s based on something i drew a couple years back of toph and zuko….don’t think too hard on when or how this takes place because i don’t really know either! it’s just a concept i’ve always wanted to draw
Do Not Let HR do this to you. It is not illegal to talk about wages in the work place. I did and got a 12% raise!
True info. Now let me add something: The power of documentation. (I was a long time steward in a nurses union.)
Remember: The “‘E” in email stands for evidence.
That cuts both ways. Be careful what you put into an email. It never really goes away and can be used against you.
But can also be a powerful tool for workplace fairness.
Case 1: Your supervisor asks you to do something you know is either illegal or against company policy. A verbal request. If things go wrong, you can count on them denying that they ever told you to do that. You go back to your desk, or wherever and you send them an email: “I just want to make sure that I understood correctly that you want me to do xxxxx” Quite often, once they see it in writing, they will change their mind about having you do it. If not, you have documentation.
Case 2: You have a schedule you like, you’ve had that schedule for a while, it works for you. Your supervisor comes to you and says “We’re really short-handed now and I need you to change your schedule just for a month until we can get someone else hired. It’s just temporary and you can have your old schedule back after a month.” A month goes by and they forget entirely that they made that promise to you. So, once again, when they make the initial request, you send them an email “I’m happy to help out temporarily, but just want to make sure I understand correctly that I will get my old schedule back after a month as you promised.” Documentation.
[Image ID: Text reading: In the middle of a busy clinic at our practice, I got pulled in by my manager to speak to HR, who must have made a special trip because she lives several states away, and told I was being 'investigated’ for discussing wages with my other employees. She told me it was against company policy to discuss wages.
Me; That’s illegal.
Them: (start italics) three slow, long seconds of staring at me blankly (end italics) Uh…
Me: That’s an illegal policy to have. The right to discuss wages is a right protected by the National Labor Relations board. I used to be in a union. I know this.
HR: Oh, this is news to me! I have been working HR for 18 years and I never knew that. Haha. Well try not do do it anyway, it makes people upset, haha.
Me: people are entitled to their opinions about what their work is worth. Bye.
I then left, and sent her several texts and emails saying I would like a copy of their company policy to see where this wage discussion policy was kept. She quickly called me back in to her office.
HR: You know what, there is no policy like that in the handbook! I double check. Sorry about the confusion, my apologies.
Me: You still haven’t given me the paper saying that we had this discussion. I am going to need some protection against retaliation.
HR: Oh haha yes here you go.
I just received a paper with legal letterhead and an apology saying there was no verbal warning or write up. Don’t even take their shit you guys. Keep talking about wages. Know your worth. /End ID]
At one of my old (shit) jobs my boss would continually come have these verbal discussions with me and would never put anything in writing I took to summarizing every discussion we had in email. Like “just to confirm that you asked me to do X by Y date and you understand that means I won’t be able to complete the previous task you gave me until Z date - 2 weeks later than originally scheduled - because you want me to prioritize this new project.
The woman would then storm back into my office screaming at me for putting the discussion in writing and arguing about pushing back the other project or whatever. At which point I would summarize that conversation in email as well. Which would bring her storming back in, rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
Anyway I cannot imagine how badly that job would have gone if I hadn’t put all her wildly unreasonable demands in writing. Bitch still hated me but she could never hang me for “missing deadlines” because I always had in writing that she’d pushed the project back because she wanted something else done first.
Paper your asses babes. Do not let them get away with shit. If they won’t put what they’re asking you to do in writing then write it up yourself and email it to them.
sometimes I wish that every article naming how much a public service would cost (or how much it would cost to repair needed infrastructure for the service or to make the service more accessible to disabled people and poor people) would explain that number in terms of how much time it takes a billionaire to earn that much.
like “it would cost $8.6 million (or, a little under one hour of Bezos’s earnings) to build a new public library building in this area which would serve 45 thousand people.”
money is literally a social and political representation of how we are choosing to allocate resources. I wish these direct comparisons were made so people who haven’t yet made the connection might at least start asking “huh… why should we allocate these resources to one person to do nothing with them instead of to 45 thousand people in the form of an essential service? why do we allocate this amount of resources to this one person every single hour of every single day but it’s unthinkable to provide it to tens of thousands of people just once? why are tens of thousands of people (of which I am one), all of us collectively, less valuable than this one guy?”
This is a good idea.
When it comes to dealing with politicians talking about cost to the taxpayer, divide it by the number of people it will serve; annualize if appropriate. “This new library will cost $8.6 million, serve 45,000, and last at least 25 years - less than $8 per person per year”.
I also like framing it in terms of what it saves, eg, this tram line will cost 5.6 million, reducing traffic congestion by 20%, save 500,000 per year in wear and tear on roads, save 0.8 million a year in health care costs related to pollution, in addition to incalculable health care savings by reducing stress of heavy commutes, increase tourism income by X, etc, etc, etc. We can’t just talk about the costs of changing. We have to talk about the costs of continuing to do things the same way
when we think of “reasonable accommodations,” we think about what is or isn’t “reasonable” to ask of, say, a small business owner.
i would like to turn this around. let’s judge what is a “reasonable” accommodation by what we are forcing disabled people to endure in its absence.
is it “reasonable” for wheelchair users to be unable to enter most buildings, use most transit, and, in many places, even navigate the sidewalk or street?
is it “reasonable” for people whose photosensitivity makes fluorescent light painful or otherwise harmful to be excluded from most public indoor spaces, or have to risk harm to enter them?
is it “reasonable” to shut roughly a fifth of the population out of public and communal life in ways that often threaten our physical survival?
