Proud owner of ~35lbs of Chainmail

Scooby-Doo AU set in ancient Rome where Shaggy is a pothead from the Kazakh Steppe.

(Today I learned marijuana is native to west/central Asia)

Daphne is from an Anglo-Saxon tribe (this is before Boudicca). Fashionable, redheaded, and people keep underestimating her intelligence.

Velma is Greek by nationality but may have an Egyptian parent, has visiting the library of Alexandria a major goal.

Unfortunately this predates vikings by like 800 years but I still think Fred is the son of Norse merchants, somehow. It's the transition period from pre-Roman iron age into Roman iron age, so...

Scooby is either somehow large enough to draw the group's travel wagon, or they also have horses that Shaggy brought with him from the Steppes and Scooby was supposed to be a guard dog (the horses are more than capable of defending themselves).

@stain-glass:

The horses are of course named Mystery and Van

Your mind.

Yes, okay, there are two horses named Mystery and Van, and then Scooby can be an ancient Saluki dog.

@lightsaberwieldingdalek:

Fred should be high patrician class but doesn’t like to talk about it- they finally take a case in Rome the city, and he takes the gang to his family home. If it’s empire times it’s an actual palace and it turns out he’s in the line of succession, if it’s republic then it’s a huge villa and one of his pregnant cousins mentions calling the baby Julius

Ohhhhhh nice, nice, nice. That sounds much more thematically appropriate than the Norse Merchants thing.

#this is cool #except #the earliest records don't indicate anglo saxon settlement of Britain until maybe the 6th Century AD #which is like 100 years after rome abandoned Britain #and like 400+ years after Boudica #she might be a pict or a celt #but if she was Anglo-Saxon she'd be a time traveller (via @lumpyspacedragon)

See, this is why I need someone else to write it! I don't know enough about the era!

Yes, she's a Celt then.

#Remember that Shaggy is canonically incredibly rich #he just doesnt show it off whatsoever #and to be in Rome from the steppes would mean traveling along the Silk Road #so Shaggy's family are likely crazy rich silk/hemp merchants #and he was instructed to make 'connections' with the Mediterranean customers #he decided to treat it as a coming of age journey with some of his new friends #the cart and Mystery and Van are all his (via @formvienthusiast)

EXACTLY, YOU GET IT

tanoraqui

Properly, Daphne should also be from a rich family, while Fred’s family should be more like upper middle class, so you might want to consider switching those two.

Fred is from Gaul and everyone assumes he’s a country bumpkin, when really he’s quite clever, the mostly undisputed leader of the team, and of course is an engineering genius (for traps) on par with the finest Roman aqueduct builders.

Daphne’s mother is a Celt, which is where she got her vividly orange hair, but her father is a patrician and a Senator. Their marriage was a bit of a scandal—she brought in a big dowry but he could’ve made a much better political match—but she produced an heir & a spare & at least one beautiful daughter perfect for political marriage…if Daphne didn’t prefer running around the Empire solving mysteries with a gang of meddling youths!

[nodnodnod] this all makes sense, yes. (However if we're moving around where Fred is from, maybe something a little further afield? We're hitting Central Asia, the British Isles, Greece/Egypt... how about Moroccan? Or we bop on back to the Scandinavia idea?)

#all of this is very fun #though I do think it’s called the mystery machine so #in my heart the horses names are mystery and machine <3#but this is trivial and I’m very sleepy peace and love on planet earth (via @bingusthebongus)

Whoops! Though a fun option given to us by @queer-folk-abroad is naming them "Aenigma and Vanguard," so I guess that would possibly mean swapping out Vanguard for a variation of Mechana?

#still can't believe both of my proposed additions were taken so well #the Gang could easily do a couple of seasons just in the travel from the Venice area over to Greece #let alone the sheer volume of content on the route from Persia to the Nile

#this would be roughly thirty years after the end of the Punic wars #the Romans would be campaigning into Gaul and north Africa around then #not having much luck but still #Velma would be part of the first two generations born after the Roman conquest of the Greek states (roughly) #so she likely grew up on stories of Roman aggression #and would likely push them to get out of the italian peninsula and into the balkan states #eventually going into greece and down the eastern edge of the Mediterranean #theyre almost a century early to try and debunk anything Jesus does (imagine them trying) #eventually getting down to alexandria and Giza to stop some grave robbers trying to “haunt” an old pyramid/tomb site #before the Romans get around to expanding into those regions (via @formvienthusiast)

I'd say I'm taking notes but I'm still not the person to write this. That said, nice, and thank you for offering up some Velma lore!

orpheusilver

peeling those sour rainbow gummy strips into long thin strings and putting them into cheap energy drink to create something im calling battery acid spaghetti will update once ive finished it

orpheusilver

dont do this

babblingbranches

I really hope its not too bad bc i actually love both components.

it forms a dry skin at the top made of the sour pellets. not a great start.

tastes really good actually. i also feel like i am about to explode.

do not do this.

jenjensd

Unanimous consensus: Do not do this

Other people: Hold on I’m about to do this

jenjensd

Rip to y'all, but I'm built different. Trying this tonight

Best I can do with what I have (I'm at work rn)

Oh that is a... fascinating smell