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Description
"Hey brother, there’s an endless road to re-discover.
Hey sister, know the water's sweet but blood is thicker.
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do

“Hey brother, do you still believe in one another?
Hey sister, do you still believe in love, I wonder?
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you,
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do

“‘What if I'm far from home?’
Oh brother, I will hear you call
‘What if I lose it all?’
Oh sister, I will help you out
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do”
- “Hey Brother” ~ Avicii

*takes a flying swan dive onto the fanart bandwagon*

So because everyone and their hamster ends up drawing amazing pics of Mr. Tragic Pink Skeleton Bae fanart for their first foray into Mystery Skulls madness I thought I’d give a little love to the other two human members of the team (sorry, Mystery, maybe next time). BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESUM AND DESERVE MORE LOVE, DARNIT. THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS SO IMPORTANT, Y’ALL. I’ve seen a woeful lack of art or fic exploring it, though, and something must be done about this. Now don’t get me wrong, I adore Lewis and the Lewis/Vivi ship just as much as the next fan (may it sail ever proudly into the sunset ), and of course I love seeing Lewis and Arthur reconciling and become best buds again, too … but platonic/familial guy-girl bonds are my lifeblood; how could I not attach myself like a barnacle to this ship? XD Also, yellow-orange and blue just mesh well with each other, no? They complement each other really nicely, both personality and design wise.

And yes, you heard that right, platonic. I personally don’t really ship these two romantically. I know the video can be rather sparse on details, but I believe Arthur was not nor ever has been in love with Vivi. They weren’t sitting next to each other in the van in the beginning of the vid (like Vivi was with Lewis in the flashback), Arthur’s expression seemed more hurt and left out in the flashback than jealous, at least to me, and neither party ever gives off any sort of overt romantic vibes towards each other when they’re interacting in the vid.

Now protectiveness, on the other hand. There seems to be a lot of that. Let’s see, let me count the ways… Vivi bodily jumped in front a murderous ghost to save Arthur, he in turn jumped into her arms for reassurance when they were spooked by the paintings (and she didn’t push him away or act annoyed, either), and he made sure to grab her when it looked like they had a chance to get away from the rampaging specter of their dead friend (who, it must be said, was chasing the both of them all around the mansion for awhile there. Can you really blame Art for taking the first opportunity to run first and ask questions later?). So yeah, while there’s only so much you can extrapolate from a 4 min video with no dialog, I really do get the impression that these two are quite close, but not really in a romantic sense. More like like brother and sister, almost. At least, that’s my interpretation.

Okay, so enough of my theorizing; on to the sketchdump! I tried my best to clean these up a bit, but they’re still pretty rough. Color makes everything better, though. XD

Those expression busts at the top were pretty fun to do. I was trying to get a feel for the characters experimenting with the MSA style, and it’s surprisingly easy to get a handle on after you do it a couple times. I think I’m the most proud of the starry-eyed Vivi and sassy Arthur. (The brown streaks in Arthur’s hair are also incredibly enjoyable to do, and I don’t know why XD)

I had quite a bit of difficulty with their brofive pose there, but I think it turned out alright in the end, and I had a lot of fun with it anyway.

Vivi thinks it will be GREAT fun to go investigate the haunted amusement park. Arthur does not know if she’s serious or trolling him. XD

I imagine that Vi’s doing some research for a case here and can’t make heads or tails of this cryptic riddle in the book, and Arthur is coming over for a look. I also headcanon that Vivi and Arthur are the brains of the Mystery Skulls. Vivi has scary good intuition, and is incredibly good at connecting seemingly random datapoints of information to extrapolate the most likely outcome or cause of something. She also adores history, and is a major, major bookworm. She’s the one who does the lion’s share of the research for the team’s cases. Arthur, on the other hand, is very knowledgeable about science , robotics, and technology (is also the biggest anime and comic book nerd), and also assists with research when Vivi needs it. He’s also a pretty competent strategist, whereas Vivi tends to just dive in headfirst when it comes to dealing with dangerous situations. The two of them make quite a fearsome duo when they put their heads together on something. Lewis has learned to just sit quietly in the background reading his romance novels until his friends start speaking English again instead of Geek-ese. XD (Not that I think Lewis is stupid by any means - not at all - these two just tend to leave him behind in the dust when it comes to their niche specialties.)

Mutual cuddle comfort sessions in the the van while it’s parked in the middle of nowhere during an evening thunderstorm (at least, I think it’s the van; I might have messed up the interior, whoops ). We honestly don’t know how these two coped or recovered after Lewis died, or even how much they remember of the event, so this is all speculation, but personally, I’m fond of the headcanon that both remember what happened, and both had to deal with it in their own ways. I think they would have clung to each other for support during those times when the loneliness and pain and grief all just became too much, Vivi being grateful that at least she didn’t lose two family members in that cave and Arthur still feeling so guilty but so grateful that Vivi won’t turn her back on him and akdnfadfjlajf I’m giving myself feels, I’m gonna stop now. Poor babies need all the hugs in the world, and that includes all 4 of them.

“Ghost” © Mystery Skulls
Animation and Characters © MysteryBen and his team

Description
"Hey brother, there’s an endless road to re-discover.
Hey sister, know the water's sweet but blood is thicker.
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do

“Hey brother, do you still believe in one another?
Hey sister, do you still believe in love, I wonder?
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you,
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do

“‘What if I'm far from home?’
Oh brother, I will hear you call
‘What if I lose it all?’
Oh sister, I will help you out
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do”
- “Hey Brother” ~ Avicii

*takes a flying swan dive onto the fanart bandwagon*

So because everyone and their hamster ends up drawing amazing pics of Mr. Tragic Pink Skeleton Bae fanart for their first foray into Mystery Skulls madness I thought I’d give a little love to the other two human members of the team (sorry, Mystery, maybe next time). BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESUM AND DESERVE MORE LOVE, DARNIT. THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS SO IMPORTANT, Y’ALL. I’ve seen a woeful lack of art or fic exploring it, though, and something must be done about this. Now don’t get me wrong, I adore Lewis and the Lewis/Vivi ship just as much as the next fan (may it sail ever proudly into the sunset ), and of course I love seeing Lewis and Arthur reconciling and become best buds again, too … but platonic/familial guy-girl bonds are my lifeblood; how could I not attach myself like a barnacle to this ship? XD Also, yellow-orange and blue just mesh well with each other, no? They complement each other really nicely, both personality and design wise.

And yes, you heard that right, platonic. I personally don’t really ship these two romantically. I know the video can be rather sparse on details, but I believe Arthur was not nor ever has been in love with Vivi. They weren’t sitting next to each other in the van in the beginning of the vid (like Vivi was with Lewis in the flashback), Arthur’s expression seemed more hurt and left out in the flashback than jealous, at least to me, and neither party ever gives off any sort of overt romantic vibes towards each other when they’re interacting in the vid.

Now protectiveness, on the other hand. There seems to be a lot of that. Let’s see, let me count the ways… Vivi bodily jumped in front a murderous ghost to save Arthur, he in turn jumped into her arms for reassurance when they were spooked by the paintings (and she didn’t push him away or act annoyed, either), and he made sure to grab her when it looked like they had a chance to get away from the rampaging specter of their dead friend (who, it must be said, was chasing the both of them all around the mansion for awhile there. Can you really blame Art for taking the first opportunity to run first and ask questions later?). So yeah, while there’s only so much you can extrapolate from a 4 min video with no dialog, I really do get the impression that these two are quite close, but not really in a romantic sense. More like like brother and sister, almost. At least, that’s my interpretation.

Okay, so enough of my theorizing; on to the sketchdump! I tried my best to clean these up a bit, but they’re still pretty rough. Color makes everything better, though. XD

Those expression busts at the top were pretty fun to do. I was trying to get a feel for the characters experimenting with the MSA style, and it’s surprisingly easy to get a handle on after you do it a couple times. I think I’m the most proud of the starry-eyed Vivi and sassy Arthur. (The brown streaks in Arthur’s hair are also incredibly enjoyable to do, and I don’t know why XD)

I had quite a bit of difficulty with their brofive pose there, but I think it turned out alright in the end, and I had a lot of fun with it anyway.

Vivi thinks it will be GREAT fun to go investigate the haunted amusement park. Arthur does not know if she’s serious or trolling him. XD

I imagine that Vi’s doing some research for a case here and can’t make heads or tails of this cryptic riddle in the book, and Arthur is coming over for a look. I also headcanon that Vivi and Arthur are the brains of the Mystery Skulls. Vivi has scary good intuition, and is incredibly good at connecting seemingly random datapoints of information to extrapolate the most likely outcome or cause of something. She also adores history, and is a major, major bookworm. She’s the one who does the lion’s share of the research for the team’s cases. Arthur, on the other hand, is very knowledgeable about science , robotics, and technology (is also the biggest anime and comic book nerd), and also assists with research when Vivi needs it. He’s also a pretty competent strategist, whereas Vivi tends to just dive in headfirst when it comes to dealing with dangerous situations. The two of them make quite a fearsome duo when they put their heads together on something. Lewis has learned to just sit quietly in the background reading his romance novels until his friends start speaking English again instead of Geek-ese. XD (Not that I think Lewis is stupid by any means - not at all - these two just tend to leave him behind in the dust when it comes to their niche specialties.)

Mutual cuddle comfort sessions in the the van while it’s parked in the middle of nowhere during an evening thunderstorm (at least, I think it’s the van; I might have messed up the interior, whoops ). We honestly don’t know how these two coped or recovered after Lewis died, or even how much they remember of the event, so this is all speculation, but personally, I’m fond of the headcanon that both remember what happened, and both had to deal with it in their own ways. I think they would have clung to each other for support during those times when the loneliness and pain and grief all just became too much, Vivi being grateful that at least she didn’t lose two family members in that cave and Arthur still feeling so guilty but so grateful that Vivi won’t turn her back on him and akdnfadfjlajf I’m giving myself feels, I’m gonna stop now. Poor babies need all the hugs in the world, and that includes all 4 of them.

“Ghost” © Mystery Skulls
Animation and Characters © MysteryBen and his team