****WARNING: SPOILERS FOR GHOST HUNTERS ADVENTURE CLUB AHEAD****
It's Vernon Shaw and I think I have the evidence to back it up. Or at least a lot of very convincing evidence that points in his direction:
- Vernon and his (twin?) brother essentially having created the whole premise and drawn up key visuals for the GHAC book back in 2012 as seen in this post from Vernon's insta (the post is still up right now): It even describes how Vernon and his brother pretend to be mystery solving adventurers when they compete in cycling races, call themselves "Ghost Hunters Adventurers Club", and have a secret handshake. Everything lines up with the protagonists of the book. In chapter I, it even says that the two protagonists "did their secret handshake and walked toward the chateau." That can't be a coincidence?!‽
- In GHAC, the protagonists are two twin brothers who claim to be identical twins but don't look very much alike. Are Vernon and his brother identical twins who don't look alike? I can't find any socials or posts of Vernon talking about being a twin. But there seems to be some parallel there, maybe?
- The two protagonists in GHAC ride around on a motorcycle: Vernon is obsessed with riding his bike, bicycles and motorcycles and his tumblr is full of images of bicycles and motorcycles.
- Vernon and his brother are avid cyclists and compete in races together (as stated in the instagram post linked above and in other posts). The two protagonists in GHAC are brothers and ride together on a (motor)bike.
- Vernon's tumbler and instagram has tons of posts featuring art and photos with human skull heads. He seems to be very into all kinds of art with skulls and human skeletons. Not halloween or goth stuff, just skull heads. There are so many that I didn't care to grab them all
- This is very interesting when you look at Dr. Cecil's signature and the official GHAC enamel pin
- Don't quite buy the skull connection? Well, Vernon even has a collection of skull head trinkets in his home, ordered a custom, hand-made bicycle frame with a skull head painted onto the frame and has a skull head tattoo on his right forearm. And what also has a human skull on it? The GHAC crest(coat of arms?)!
- Dr. Cecil states on his Twitter profile that Twitter is a "wretched site", while Arin seems to always have been very happy about Twitter and interacts and talks with people on Twitter nearly every day. However, Vernon hasn't been on Twitter since 2017 due to "mental health stuff" I know that one is grasping at straws. But then look at header photo on his Twitter; Another fucking skeleton!
Just to be 100% clear: No, I'm not saying that Vernon is telling Arin how to portray Cecil, or that Vernon is writing Cecil's lines or tweets.
But I distinctly remember Vernon getting a ton of hate from a lot of fans that seemed to get to him a lot. I don't remember in which context, but I'm also pretty sure Arin mentioned to Dan, or the other way around, that Vernon didn't feel the GG fans liked him so he didn't want to be in GG episodes or 10mph anymore. Don't quote me on that. But he did definitely disappear very suddenly to the point where many fans though he quit his job at GG. And I'm sure just as many have just forgotten about him entirely because he's barely ever seen or heard on GG(if ever) since he "left" Twitter.
Obviously, I can't say with 100% certainty that Vernon wrote this by himself or anything like that. I still only read the sample of GHAC so I can't say if there are more clues. But thinking about how most Gg viewers are either indifferent or annoyed by Vernon, he definitely would never had a fair shot at selling any kind of merchandise let alone a $15 book to anyone(hot pepper gaming is long over and not on anyone's radar).
Arin, however, has a couple hundred thousand people lined up to s his d at a second's notice and has the perfect platform to sell nearly anything. You simply wrap it in some dumb angry-old-crook narrative with the Dr. Cecil character that makes it seem like Arin thinks we can't tell he is Cecil in disguise and nobody will figure it out. Perfect gaslighting technique, Grumps, 10/10!
The thought of thousands of people buy a book written by someone they don't care about, downright hate, or just don't know is kinda awful but also hilarious when thinking how aggressively some fans defend Arin on everything he says or does.
I guess that's the thanks and sincerity you get from the Grumps for being a Lovely!
