Cozy mystery - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org

middle class white people are like "I want to snuggle in my blanket while reading a cheerful bloodless story about murder", very demonic Karen culture lol

These characters are typically well educated, intuitive, and hold jobs that bring them into constant contact with other residents of their community and the surrounding region (e.g., caterer, innkeeper, librarian, teacher, dog trainer, shop owner, reporter). Like other amateur detectives, they typically have a contact on the police force who can give them access to important information about the case at hand, but the contact is typically a spouse, lover, friend, or family member rather than a former colleague. Dismissed by the authorities in general as nosy busybodies, particularly if they are middle-aged or elderly women, the detectives in cozy mysteries are thus left free to eavesdrop, gather clues, and use their native intelligence and intuitive "feel" for the social dynamics of the community to solve the crime.

well educated (PMC?) dorks LARPing as cops for fun...very sus reactionary narratives. Reminds me of the 2nd amendment which deputizes all settler colonialists into being amateur law enforcement. Stand your ground in your cozy blanket!!!

The murderers in cozies are typically neither psychopaths nor serial killers, and, once unmasked, are usually taken into custody without violence. They are generally members of the community where the murder occurs and able to hide in plain sight, and their motives—greed, jealousy, revenge—are often rooted in events years, or even generations, old. The murderers are typically rational and often highly articulate, enabling them to explain, or elaborate on, their motives after their unmasking.

an idealist understanding of violence that is completely disconnected from the material conditions of alienation

While de-emphasis on sex and violence, emphasis on puzzle-solving over suspense, the setting of a small town, and a focus on a hobby or occupation are characteristic elements of cozy mysteries, the boundaries of the subgenre remain vague

petite leisure class are defined by their vacant class unconscious hedonism

  • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    My brother and I came up with a great plot for a gritty live-action Scrappy Doo miniseries.

    Ep 1: The Gang is coming apart a bit as people move on with their lives. Daphne and Fred are living somewhere in the midwest, a few hours drive from Scooby and Shaggy. Velma has started school on the east coast in the big city. Everyone is going about their lives a bit bored, a bit disconnected, a bit depressed. Scrappy is out there getting into hijinks, and somehow ends up in a pound somewhat near Velma's university (Velma is fucking stacked btw). Velma can't make it to get him out because she has to study for some exam, so Daphne has to hop on the Greyhound and shlep it out to get out Scrappy. The night before she picks him up, she gets hit by a car and is killed instantly. The next day, Scrappy is put down by the pound. The remaining gang (and the audience) is devastated.

    Ep 2: Scooby is haunted by the ghost of Scrappy. Fred is haunted by the ghost of Daphne. Velma retreats further from the gang, and Shaggy's drug use goes from recreation to self-medication. Time passes, and Fred, desperate to repair his social group and in need of income, cajoles Shaggy and Scoob to join him for another roundabout in the Mystery Mobile. Velma doesn't answer his calls. They end up in a small town with another classic mystery: a real-estate developer wants to buy the old historic library on the riverside, tear it down, and put in a high-rise apartment building too expensive for anyone in the town. At the same time, a monster from the river terrorizes the town's denizens. The mystery is rote, and the gang solves it easily, nearly immediately: the monster is unmasked as the developer. It brings the gang no satisfaction. As they prepare to leave town, though, another monster, another mystery pops up: another monster, someone gets hurt, and a strange figure in the background pulling the strings.

    Ep 3: The gang, somewhat revitalized by this mysterious cloaked figure, seem to be just a few steps behind every town they pass. The Cloaked Man appears wherever they do, taunting them, tormenting them. Meanwhile, Fred is haunted by visions of Daphne's shattered body, Scooby by his young nephew's cold corpse. The ghosts speak to them, cry out, beg for help. Only the excitement of these new mysteries keep them going (and funded). Velma speaks to Shaggy occasionally on the phone, but there's a lot of blame and resentment: she could've presented both deaths with a day's drive. But she helps with the mysteries over the phone, out of guilt. She keeps meticulous notes.

    Ep 4: Shaggy nearly catches the Cloaked Man himself, but starts to suspect something is wrong: why does he appear in every town they go to? Why is Fred always the one finding the leads about him? Shaggy chalks his paranoia up to his debilitating consumption of massive quantities of marijuana. The momentary excitement of the mysteries begins to wane for Scoob, who is barely sleeping, constantly haunted by Scrappy's ghost - but that ghost isn't cruel or vindictive. It's encouraging. It tells Scoob to keep going, to solve the real mystery, and he drags himself onward. Velma, far away, starts getting suspicious as well. Something is off about the Cloaked Man: why doesn't Fred ever confront him face to face?

    Ep 5: This one is Fred focused. He is in a state of constant mania, driven by his buried grief and the waking nightmare of Daphne's constant ethereal presence. Every action he takes is confusing, unmotivated, contradictory. Badgering questions from Shaggy - and, Fred suspects, Velma by proxy - make Fred panicked. Is he a suspect? It builds to a dramatic moment at the episode's end, between Fred and the Cloaked Man on a bridge in a storm. There's a scuffle, but before Fred can unmask the villain, he slips into the drained canal below, breaking his neck and dying instantly. It's... just a homeless man from town. Fred shoves the body into low water and watches it float downstream. Who is the puppet master here? Fred is coming apart at the seams.

    Ep 6: Velma has heard enough. Her friends are struggling, and she has to do something to deal with her guilt. She comes out to follow the Mystery Machine, help them put this mystery to bed. And she's figured out what's really going on. The mystery in this town is dramatic, dangerous, and seemingly unrelated to the simmering class issues under the surface. People keep getting hurt. Bystanders, and, eventually, Scoob breaks a leg. Shaggy is distraught. Velma finally confronts the Cloaked Man - it's Fred. We get a montage of Fred's desperation forcing him to construct mysteries for the gang to solve, and the need to make them more and more extreme eventually drives him to disassociate, until even he doesn't realize that he's the mastermind. The final confrontation is violent - Fred stabs Velma and breaks her wrist, but Shaggy and Scooby arrive just in time to stop Fred, restrain him, and hold him until the authorities arrive. Fred ends up in a psych ward, with only Daphne's ghost for company - until the gang starts to visit him, speak to him, help him recover. Scrappy moves on from Scooby, Daphne moves on from Fred, and - finally - they start to heal, to find peace, to forgive.