Late-night sketch đ¤âŚ after working only on comms it was time to do something for myself⌠and I've been wanting to draw Vivi with that expression for ages⌠the Lewis was a last-minute addition đ
These two will swear on everybody's SOULS that they hate each other's guts, want to drag the next one to hell and back but this is the average position you'll find them in at 9PM SHARP. At least they were nice enough to leave space on the bed for Vivi and Boku
Long time coming but hereâs sum more Mystery Skulls dynamic info dump!
Vivi is beyond enthusiastic as Audrey starts to gain a lot more confidence in the world of Magic/supernatural/what-have-you, eagerly showing all of different forms of research and knowledge there was to find. She knows that Audrey isnât ready to leap in feet first into the other less than normal side of the world, as Audrey would see it as validating her as a âwitchâ as everyone around her had assumed she was all her life, so she is careful to not overwhelm her, guiding her to explore some of the more sweeter aspects of the paranormal and explaining the unforeseen benefits such forces actually provide to their plane of existence while making sure to remind her to still be cautious towards the âless-than-sugary-sweetâ parts. Audrey appreciates her restraint and does her best to keep an open mind, but even now and again as she starts toeing into accepting the unknown, it still makes her tremble at times.
One aspect of their friendship that is key is Food; Audrey, the generous baker, and Vivi, the walking black hole, are a match made in heaven. Vivi absolutely LOVES Audreyâs baking, will happily devour a whole box of whatever goodies she brings to their âgroup meetingsâ (i.e. She, her, Arthur & Mystery) is given the chance and provides profoundly positive feedback on whatever concoctions the shy baker literally brings to the table. Audrey, having no one actually tried what she made before and actually commenting on it, is blown away by Viviâs honest enjoyment and this becomes one of the major things that helps bring Audrey more and more out of her shell. Even when she doesnât make what she brought, Vivi is always grateful and appreciative of the thought she puts into the snacks she brings. She also appreciates the ingenuity and creativity that Audrey puts into each creation, taking ideas from simple classics and making them into something tasty and new (one example being Sea Salt Ice Cream from Kingdom Hearts that Vivi had always DREAMED of trying ever since seeing it in KH2 â she nearly proposed marriage on the spot when Audrey shyly presents her own nearly authentic version of it to everyone in a small cooler one day, much to Arthurâs and Mysteryâs mortification). This factor proves to be crucial later one when a certain ghost makes an appearance . . .
Audrey, not being particularly athletic, is easily astounded by how strong Vivi is despite her size, easily being able to life the much taller girl to her feet or sometimes straight up carrying her away from whatever ghoulish danger the crew found themselves in, usually dragging Arthur behind her without even breaking a stride.
But Vivi isnât always the strong one, even more so once Audrey is made aware of the âepisodesâ Vivi ends up enduring every time something pertaining a certain someone is mentioned. Arthur had explained to her the bare minimum of what had happened from what he remembers from the cave incident; him losing his arm, Lewis going missing and Vivi losing all memory of him. While he believed it had something to do with PTSD like him, Audrey eventually realizes the truth. She has little to no experience with actual magic, but thanks to her blessing, she could quickly recognize that whatever it was that was blocking Lewisâs memory from Vivi was NOT normal. She attempts to bring this up a few times, meekly suggesting that there might be more to it than a simple mental block, but comes up short when it comes to an actual answer or explanation. Audrey feels helpless when she sees how frustrated Vivi gets each time she draws a blank on this seemingly important part of her life thatâs missing, and can only do her best to comfort her when it gets overwhelming, wishing there was more she could do than just âseeâ the problem.
FUN FACT: It had actually been Vivi who had chosen Audreyâs canon outfit! Due to a slight wardrobe malfunction that had occurred when around the second-third time that they met (PLOT-VAULTED FOR NOW!), Vivi decided that the only way to make it up to her was by taking her shopping, whisking her to nearest clothes store without a second thought. Audrey tried, and failed, to dissuade her, saying she was fine, but Vivi, being Vivi wouldnât hear a word of it, pulling her from rack to rack and seeing what looked best on her. Eventually she settled on her now canon look, but would not actually see her in it until MUCH later due to PLOT REASONS.
hey all, what are some classic mystery skulls animated fandom works that are considered classics.
i got into the series when i was young and didnt know what fandoms/tumblr was so any recomendations would be appreciated
oooooh, that's a fun one! Lemme pull together some of my personal faves, and some of the old Tumblr blogs that haven't been nuked. I'll probably tag one or two people at the end that I know are still semi-active in the fandom who have been here from the getgo.
This will likely get long, so I'll keep it under a read more so I don't clutter people's dashboards. Fair warning, all of these will have Arthur in them, because I am huge fan of the man, so that will color my recommendations. Also, most authors on this list have tumblrs and did most of their writing here and then later/concurrently posted their stuff to AO3. I'll try to make sure to link both when I'm aware of them.
Starting off:
House of Strays by Tyigra:
"Artsy Fartsy summary:
Evil stalks the night, guilt haunts a young manâs footsteps, and an otherworldly mansion waits with open doors for the walking dead--and for dead men walking. Sleepwalker, Spirit, Seeker, and Shapeshifter: thereâs plenty of blame and tears to go around. But thereâs plenty of love and laughter, too, waiting to be rekindled."
The OG MSA fic, this one features a lot of early head canons and is still one of the top 3 rated MSA fics on AO3. While there was a small but active fanfic.net contingent of the MSA fandom, I will admit I had mostly moved away from there by the time MSA really kicked off. Personally I like this one because it has probably one of the most interesting takes on how Arthur and Lewis would have reacted to the idea that Arthur wasn't the one in control when Lewis got shoved off a cliff. That one scene definitely spawned some memes that I'll try to remember to add if I find them.
The Mirror's Gaze by Eternal_Phantom:
(Also found on Tumblr HERE)
An occult mirror called The Lifestealer leads to a unexpected journey for two teams of mystery solvers. Now Arthur Kingsman is in the body of Shaggy Rogers and vice versa and it is a race to reconnect and get their own teammates back. But like all good investigative teams, cases find them and sometimes they end up being radically different than what they are used to. Plus there are secrets that they are keeping, from themselves⌠and one another
It was the biggest thing for a long time tbh. While yes, it is a crossover with Scooby Doo, and yes, it is not, nor likely ever will be complete, it has that distinct flavor of pre-MSA-sequels you don't find in newer fics. Despite hating body swap as a trope, I love The Mirror's Gaze because it does such a good job at fleshing out and giving love and attention to all of the characters involved. Highly, highly recommend.
Mystery Skulls - Broken hearts and memories by shedrak1221:
(Tumblr of author with various cut oneshots and ideas)
"A mysterious mansion, an angered ghost, a man broken by regret, a girl with shattered memories and a dog hiding secrets...
Everyone connected by one dreadful night.
Can they understand eachother before its too late? Can they fix the friendship lost in that cave...?
Relates the events of the video and what might happen next.
Main story is finished, chapter 19.
After that chapter it's adventure! Anything can happen!
This story has been written before the second video!"
One of the longest and better known fics in the msa fandom, this behemoth of a fic is part of a larger series of connected one shot collections that featured a lot of the evolution of the MSA fandom between videos 1 and 3. While most of this is the author's personal head canons, the underlying assumptions about the characters reflects a lot of the discourse going on at the time pre second video. I'm also a huge fan of this series because the author took suggestions, and was super responsive to reader feedback. Some of my personal fave oneshots and headcanons in the fandom come from this specific oneshot collection. This is also where we start getting into heavy shipping territory, so fair warning that starting with this fic and going forwards, most fics will generally incorporate some amount of Lewis x Vivi x Arthur (Lewvithur for short)
Okay is Good Enough by PitViperOfDoom:
Arthur did have a moment of weakness in the cave that allowed a demon easy access, but it wasn't what Lewis thought. He wasn't jealous. He was never jealous.
An amazing oneshot, lots of great character building, very sweet Lewvithur in amongst all of the high action, not super long, highly recommend. If you liked it and want more than just their AO3 can provide, they also have a Tumblr with short snippets and other ideas HERE!
Best Served Cold by Hecallsmehischild:
Arthur is a wreck. He's convinced that Lewis is coming for him any day. Worse, he knows he deserves it. But Vivi and Mystery refuse to give up on him, and Vivi keeps prying as to why he won't leave his house. Sooner or later, something has to give. (Full revision complete, pending beta reading)
This fic is amazing, both on it's own and arguably even moreso as part of it's larger series of fics. Back before we had for sure clues about Vivi's Japanese background, there was a lot of speculation about her and Lewis. If I remember right we got Arthur's ties to Arthurian mythology on his character sheet, and so before all the extended character sheets released, this fic came out. It's gone through a heavy revision on AO3, so it's not the same as when I first read it, but arguably it's better than it was. You can still find remnants of the original on the Wayback Machine if you're really curious, but as it is now I'd say it's the best version of itself. The later fics are still being revised, so I think in the second entry only about half the chapters have been edited, so there's a bit of an awkward shift in tone and writing where it jumps from revision to original.
Regardless, Best Served Cold and it's series are by far my favorite series of fics in the MSA fandom by a lot.
A Million Lies (A Single Truth) by Dont_Feed_Da_Elves:
The Mystery Skulls Gang has its highs and lows, just like every group. Sometimes their experiences are a little more⌠extravagant than normal, though.
Another Oneshot collection, this time by Dont_Feed_Da_Elves! Technically "unfinished", but since it's a oneshot collection and they haven't added to it in over 6 years, I'm going to say it might as well be done. The author also has a tumblr if you can't get enough MSA from their oneshot collection and other AO3 MSA works HERE.
The Devil and the Dead: A Mystery Skulls AU by Providentially_Demonic:
Based on ectoimpâs absorbing AU sketches (Most of which can be found here!)
At first all he knew was darknessâ rage, pain and the ultimate sting of betrayal. And then Lewis opened his eyesâŚ
Another personal fave, this one is an AU spawned on Tumblr between a few different people, but most popularized by @ectoimp 's art and this fic by @providentially-demonic. While ectoimp was probably more well known for their Arthur werewolf AU, I was always a bit of a sucker for this one too. The idea is that when Arthur pushed Lewis, Mystery missed when he tried to remove Arthur's arm when the demon dodged, and the demon accidentally threw Arthur off the cliff as well when doing so. From there, Arthur fights for possession of his dying body with the demon, taking on physical demonic characteristics while locking the demon away deep within his mind. Lewis, seeing all this happening after he wakes up after death, decides that his obsession is going to be protecting Arthur actually, and things move from there. Really interesting stuff, and once again, highly recommend.
And last but not least for the night!
One of Us by alphashley14:
Nibiru approaches, with the Children of Nibiru pitted against each other to uncover the mystery behind the curse and the treasure buried beneath Crystal Cove. Until a third Mystery Inc gang arrives in Crystal Cove. Three young adults and a talking dog - it can't be a coincidence!
But the Mystery Skulls are hiding secrets of their own that connect them to the curse of Crystal Cove - and make them uniquely qualified to break it. But with the wounds of the past still open and bleeding, it's difficult for Scooby and the gang to trust another group as far as they can throw them, and an unlikely ally is trapped on Professor Pericles' side, unable to join them.
That is, unless a certain inter-dimensional being has anything to say about it.
So if you liked The Mirror's Gaze, but you wanted a "pinned down" Scooby Canon to work with, boy howdy this one is for you! Currently updating and running at over 200k words, this love letter of a fic does an amazing job at diving into all the characters from both Mystery Skulls Animated and Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated. Not only is the fic a fascinating AU of SD!MI and a fun headcanon infused post-canon of MSA, it also presents an actual mystery to solve and helps to flesh out some of the characters that never got a lot of love in their original material. Honestly, 11/10, it consumed my life for a solid 2 weeks and caused me to write my own spin off like the insane person that I am. The author posts their chapters a little early on their Tumblr, and also all of their original art for the fic there, so I highly recommend you check @alphashley14 on Tumblr here. (Heads up tho, most of their blog is sdmi, which is still awsome, but outside of the original scope of your post I will admit.)
And finally: Some of the OGs in the MSA Tumblr community that didn't nuke their accounts in the last 10 years (of which I've lost most of them, but here's a few to get you started).
Already mentioned @ectoimp, and they're definitely the most active in the MSA community of those that were big back in the day. @dontfeeddaelves is another one already mentioned, but here's the rest of their blog. Yeah basically all the author's mentioned above have a tumblr that you can still access in some capacity. Another that I haven't mentioned yet is @bechnokid, who has been a fan since basically day one. Here's their MSA tag from the beginning so you can kinda see how things changed over time!
My apologies to all the people I've tagged I just want the OP to know how to find you, since y'all have been so lovely for so many years, and I'm just thankful there are still people I can point to and say "Look! they have MSA fanart in their archives on their blogs!" for new fans to see. Or for old fans to enjoy all over again lol.
Right, this post got away from me, and I've been writing and formatting it for far too long. There are plenty of other authors and Tumblr bloggers that I wasn't able to get around to mentioning on here, but by deep diving on the above, you should be able to find some of the other big names from back in the day that are still hanging around. Welcome back to the fandom, and I hope this helps you find some fics and art to enjoy!
A series called Extended Family AU by @phantoms-lair, who's the same author as Eternal Phantom on AO3. The first entry to the AU / crossover is this one:
It was unusual for Vivi to be on her own. Even if her friends werenât by her side, Mystery always was.
But today she was on her own, by choice. She was mad at Mystery for the secrets heâd kept. Mad at Lewis for turning on Arthur like that, and for going straight for murder without asking questions. And while she wasnât mad at Arthur (who had been as much in the dark as her), they had been spending a lot of time in an enclosed van and she could use a breather.
It crosses over with Scooby Doo, but in a different and unrelated universe to Mirror's Gaze, and it's so much fun! Especially the focus on Vivi and exploring her feelings regarding the events of the videos around what we knew by the end of year 2020 delights me and makes it my favorite entry. The entire series as it current exists is posted in chapter 19 of It Came from Tumblr: Mystery Skulls on AO3.
As for fanart, @pcktknife has created several amazing and beautiful artworks of MSA over the years. I keep going back and looking at the designs for the crew.
Heya everyone! Apologies for the lack of a Mystery Skulls Animated update between the last one. Life certainly has been... life-ing lately.
To end the year, we're posting a tearful, yet determined Vivi! This will likely be the last bit of animation we'll be showing off at this point, as there just isn't anything left to show that won't give more away than we'd want. Individual screenshots will continue however, so no worries there.
"Long time no see, huh? You look like you've seen a ghost~
L-Lewis...?
Oh no, he's... unavailable right now. You'll be calling me Reverb~"
Wanted to mess around with a Reverb using Lewis's face to freak Arthur out :3 while sketching I realized I drew his pose very similarly to Lewis at the beginning of The Future and I decided to lean into it :3
Below the cut are the flats, an alternative version, and a concept sketch :3
Beautiful colors!! And I adore Lewis / Reverb's pose, it's so. Lewis stands up straight, shoulders pulled back, while Reverb's shoulders are slightly slanted. And his right eye is overcast in Shadows!
so i had actually been planning to draw this when TOTK was first teased, but i never actually got to it until @mysterybensmysteryblog streamed it this week and revived my motivation
throughout the stream i also took several notable shenanigans and drew them with the msa cast, as the chat kept assigning them to various characters lol
(you may notice a trend of decreasing effort and sanity)
overall the stream was very fun, hope to see more! i was too busy these few days to get around to drawing bens new avatar, but ill try to get to it eventually lol
The Mystery Skulls crew in a Leverage AU. They blow open cases with ties to the supernatural.
Most of the time, the perpetrators exploit the supernatural in some way - their own powers or others' - or pretend to be supernatural to steal, extort people, etc.
The Mystery Skulls' core philosophy differs from the canon Leverage crew, partly because they have different backgrounds. So, jobs and approaches differ as well. They have less dedicated specific roles, and they more operate on a spectrum.
Starting with Vivi- Main liasion for human / alive clients. She performs the main research for potential cases and makes first contact, when people don't come to her first. She contacts specialists on topics she has no or too little knowledge on, so that she can make educated guesses if the Mystery Skulls should get involved or somebody else would do a better job.
Decides on which cases to present to the crew. Which cases the crew pursues must be an unanimous vote after they've researched enough to know what they're dealing with.
One of the physical heavy hitters with her bat and her ice magic. Specific spells are beyond her reach at the moment because she needs to train them first. Vivi's learning from both obaa-san and Mystery.
She also contacts specialists to make sure that their clients didn't contact the Mystery Skulls to avoid paying (more) money to the specialists. Not that she's going to say that, oh no. That would mean the clients might try to dupe another group or a group who'd cause more damage than they'd help.
The Mystery Skulls are acting as smokescreen so that the specialists can do their work and will sends their bills at the ending. With the Mystery Skulls pointing out that that their fineprint states that clients agree with their signature that they're liable if they try to scam the Mystery Skulls by withholding important information, as well as other legal clauses. If the client had been honest from the start, they'd have needed to pay only one, smaller bill!
In a mixed crossover and a timeline even more vague, the Mystery Skulls are known as another group of investigators and âghost huntersâ. Admittedly, however, their credentials are good. They have supported local Psychonauts several times and debunked several occasions of âghostsâ as mundane crimes where rich people tried to get richer and used props and other tricks to scare people away.
There are rumors that the Mystery Skulls are psychic, although these claims have repeatedly and clearly been disproven. Often to the embarrassment of the one accusing them of being psychics. People even said their dog Mystery was psychic.
Itâs because they have magic - and Arthur likely doesnât have that aside maybe some instant spells made by somebody else, just apply water - but shhhhh!
If Lewisâ still a ghost in this like in canon, this is morbidly hilarious in reference to the whole dropped / only mentioned story thread that the Delugionists try to resurrect Maligula.
The dead can return, after all! Just not alive. And as far as Lewis knows, he was never psychic.
Which is a bit ironic given Ben and the other creators dropping hints about his mysterious past.
Well, here are two headcanon designs of the gang jaja ââđ I know there are already tons of fan versions but I wanted to make my own, plus I really enjoyed making themâŚ
I still have other designs that I want to show you but those are for later.
Thereâs the terrifying first second. The lurch of his stomach upwards, the disorientation where he feels actually weightless, the abyss that he doesnât see, doesnât remember in the moment, but that yawns under him. Thereâs nothing, thereâs everything.
The cultistâs figure zooms rapidly away as she screams, and reality slams back into Mystery as he plummets.
âSo thatâs how Arthur and Lewis felt,â he thinks hysterically. His body is frozen, all four of his legs sticking uselessly up. The chains trail like iron streamers. âNow we just need Vivi and our quartet is complete.â
And then his thoughts scatter in the air he falls through. It lasts only few seconds, but for Mystery, who has experienced many things but never such a plummet â how pathetic â itâs the moment when shears come flying towards his face; when a demon pushes a friend over a cliff.
The sounds of the battle rush in his ears. People scream or cry or yell, stone cracks break shatters, spells sizzle, a chaos of noise that distantly wraps around him.
A magenta flash lights up the entire ceiling, interspersed with sharp, icy bolts. Magic burns the air.
Somebody screams his name.
Biles rises in his throat with the fear that the muzzle traps in his snout. He canât transform, he canât cast a spell â he doesnât even remember how.
Itâs always like this. He always freezes up when he needs to act. He always stands there like a fool when his friends need his help; his friends always have to save him when he needs help.
Not this time. There is no time. Nobody is close enough to catch him or redirect his fall or cushion him because he was stupid, he didnât fight hard enough, now he will slam against the brick floor which will kill him because this form is so fragile, it will soak everything in his blood, starting the cycle all over again because-
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