#cause for everyone but shaggy and scooby it fluctuates wildly

[tubapun]

Watching Alien Invaders and I really love Fred's role as the Skeptic of the gang here, especially when viewed in concert with the other Mook films and Scooby canon writ large before that.

Fred was definitely kind of a skeptic in WAY, almost always the last one to believe a supernatural occurrence was actually happening, to the point that he had to be dragged away a few times cause he wanted to stay and investigate regardless of the real danger (fake or not that ghost wants to hurt you fred!!)

And I think that actually meshes really well with his appearance in A Pup Named, where he was this kid who ALWAYS thought the occurrence was supernatural (and/or red herring, but note the and. Dude thought his nemesis was a Martian on more than one occasion).

So of course when he matures a bit and has a couple dozen mysteries under his belt he's gonna realize that the supernatural is fake. But because he's so embarrassed by how long he believer in Mole Men, he's gone to the opposite extreme (this can tie into his autism btw, he had a special interest that got him in trouble and now he's trying to mask so very hard about it) where he just categorically denies that ghosts and ghouls can be real.

And then his friend group breaks up for a bit and he goes with Daphne because she was the closest at the end. It wasn't a bad break they just had different needs (and college plans) and they keep in touch and reminisce on the good ole days until they don't. Life just gets busy in your twenties.

And so he gets the gang back together the first chance he gets, cause Daphne believes and he wants to but the burden of proof is so high because the sample size of "monster that is fake" is enormous for him now. And so each Mook film he still is justified to be skeptical because like. Yeah Zombies were real, but that was a fluke, the witch ghost is fake. And then he's right and wrong on that at the same time so when Aliens come up he's like "look ive been tricked before but no more. I'll investigate but unless you've got hard proof I'll snark at you with my friends" and it rules.

And if you're wondering why Velma believes so immediately when Fred waits, the answer is that she, as a scientist, knows its better to work assuming the hypothesis can be true, rather than to deny it from the start. And she LOVES testing the hypothesis. Fred does too but he's seen enough that he's not gonna NOT snark and joke. And they're besties.

(This timeline ignores the scrappy era slightly, but it's also possible Daphne and Shaggy strike out on their own for a bit while Fred does college and then Daphne and Fred reconnect. This would account for why Daph is so convinced in the supernatural in ZI)