Line #8 Blog/VicekingsGraab


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/triptych_of_the_architect.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Triptych of the Architect, by Logic]]
3
4	->''The Viceking is dead. Long live the King.''
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6	''[[http://vicekingsgraab.blogspot.com/ Viceking's Graab]]'' is a blog maze by [[Tropers/DJay32 [=DJay32=]]]. In it, you explore a pyramid/tomb/catacomb/labyrinth of blogs, reading the writing on the walls that might be the actual walls themselves, in search of the centre where the "Viceking" is buried. Who was the Viceking? Who killed him? Why? What led to the construction of the tomb? These are all, as described by the writing on the walls, your goals to find out. Be warned, however. The ''Graab'' contains well over 60 blogs, and every path has ample misdirection. And to make things even more confusing, this is a part of a metanarrative of blogs by the abstract character "Christoph Magreat."
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8	Written for Franchise/TheFearMythos and Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos, [=DJay=] spent several months working on it having grown very disillusioned with blogging as a whole.
9	----
10	!!The ''Graab'' contains examples of these tropes:
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12	* AffectionateParody
13	* AllThereInTheManual: [=DJay=] released a companion blog, ''[[http://vicekingsblaag.blogspot.com/ Viceking's Blaag]]'', which offers leading questions and some analyses for the more particularly obscure ''FinnegansWake'' references. Plus a list of art pieces, which could act as a sort of checklist-- if any of the art is new to you, you haven't seen all of the maze.
14	* AnachronicOrder: Beyond just being nonlinear, if you try to make sense of the history of the Viceking or even just the building of the tomb, no set path through the maze will be chronological. There are implications that the further in you go, the further back in time things are, but even that doesn't quite add up with the stories told by the writing on the walls.
15	* ArcWords:
16	** [[FinnegansWake "Buckley shot the Russian General."]]
17	** "Deep." It's not obviously recurring, but once you've been made aware of it, it becomes obvious how hammered-in it is.
18	* AuthorAvatar: Shem, the one who wrote on all the walls, is yet another manifestation of Jordan Dooling in the blogosphere. Though given that the ''Graab'' is supposed to be written by Magreat, this might be more muddled than it seems.
19	* CallBack: Not just in the sense of a labyrinthine layout with the text referencing itself in convoluted ways, but just about every aspect of the maze is a reference to something in Fear Mythos past.
20	* CreatorProvincialism: In an abstract example of the trope, the fact that everything about this maze is a thinly-veiled metaphor for the Fear Mythos is surely because it was written by [=DJay=].
21	* {{Deconstruction}}: Of blogging, of communities, of reading, of writing, of fear, of thought.
22	* {{Dedication}}: To alliterator, who wrote 90 blogs for the mythos, many of which are among [=DJay's=] favourites. With the completion of this maze, [=DJay's=] own blog count technically passed a hundred.
23	* EasterEgg: Almost every element of every blog in this maze was meticulously placed, meaning there are secrets in the ''Graab'' that will go unnoticed for a long time.
24	* EveryoneKnewAlready: On one level, the Viceking is [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos the Slender Man.]] This is practically advertised and doesn't take much to figure it out in the maze itself. (However, perhaps it's advertised because it feels like an empty answer, a premise rather than a mystery.)
25	* LanguageEqualsThought: Implied and debated the further into the maze you get.
26	* MeaningfulName: Every name is meaningful. "Viceking," "Shem," "Buckley" (and the Russian General).
27	* MindScrew
28	* OstentatiousSecret: "What will you find in the middle of this tomb? What was the deal with the Viceking, how did he die, why, what did he actually do in life?" Such questions are brought up in almost every single blog.
29	* [[spoiler:NoEnding: None of the paths conclude. Everything takes you back to the beginning if you try hard enough. Unless you're unlucky enough to hit a genuine dead-end.]]
30	* ThePlace: It's literally the grave of the Viceking.
31	* SelfDeprecation: In the ''B-Movie Monsters'' pastiche, all the posts are rather frank and cynical summaries of some of [=DJay's=] previous blogs.
32	* ShoutOut: The interbloguality runs so rampant that it's practically the thesis of this maze, but shout-outs pertain to non-blogs as well.
33	* SpiritualSequel: To alliterator's ''the garden of forking paths''.
34	* StylisticSuck: Billy Everyblogger, of ''Fearblog of Fear'', gets a blog somewhere in the maze. It's predictably terrible. He attempts to hide many dead-end paths, but they can easily be accessed via his blog archive.
35	* TheTreacheryOfImages: From time to time, the reader is reminded that they are not literally in a tomb, that even plot-wise they are alone reading words on a screen.

Context Blog / VicekingsGraab