Gridlocked

A young woman stands in her bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 19th of September, is Talk Like A Pirate Day! Avast! Other than that, this day in particular bears no significance to the girl at all.
Author	Collen
Status	Active

Gridlocked is an adventure created by Collen. It uses many elements from Homestuck, although Sburb does not seem to be present in it. The art style is mainly images with grids of 36 64x64 squares, top-down perspective. The characters are simply represented by little images of their heads. In recent updates, however, this style is deviated from in the form of Hero Mode-style images.

The adventure began on 10/7/2012, and the suggestion box is found here.

Characters

Virginia Adams

Virginia Adams
Hey dont diss ~ATH. ~ATH is cool. Were pretty much best buds.
Introductory Page
Joke Name	Ingrid
Fetch Modus	Series
Strife Specibus	Bookkind
Chumhandle	arisenAthena

Virginia Adams is the first character introduced in the story. She aspires to become an independant video game programer and when she is first shown, she is almost done coding her first game, a fantasy RPG titled 'Gridlocked'.

She has piles and piles of ~ATH coding books, littering her library and filling her storage chests. Apparently she's become quite adept at ~ATH, much to her friend Brian's dismay.

Beyond that, she has an intense hatred for puns (in contrast with Nitro), refusing the initially suggested joke name of 'Ingrid'. She once blew up her school and killed one of her friends after an accident involving ~ATH. Since then, she has had a lot of free time for coding her game, although she spends a lot of it goofing around on Tumblr.

She fights often with Brian, who thinks that ~ATH is bad to mess around with. She is quite steadfast about her love for ~ATH though, and doesn't listen to Brian, frustrating him to no end.

Her chumhandle is arisenAthena, referencing the Greek goddess of crafts and wisdom. She types in yellowish-green and omits capitalization other than the first letter of sentences as well as apostrophes, except for when she is particularly stressed out.

Brian Taylor

Brian Taylor
it's just that i know everything will be screwed up if she keeps on using it. the seas will rise, the volcanoes will all erupt. or the universe will just implode on itself.
Introductory Page
Joke Name	Obligatory Silly Name
Fetch Modus	???
Strife Specibus	???
Symbol	???
Chumhandle	fordingFuture

Brian Taylor is the second character introduced in the story. He appears to be good friends with everyone in his group, though he can be rather pushy when it comes to things such as ~ATH. He's written fanfics and even made a shipping chart of him and his friends, creeping them out to no end, but nothing can stop his fanboyish antics.

He has lived in a place called the Everplane (often stylized as ) for all of his life. He and RH contact their friends from five years in the future, which means that in Virginia's time the present day Brian is six years old.

Brian comes from a long line of royalty and lives in a castle surrounded by lava. Often the castle is attacked by creatures called fire sprites. When these attacks happen Brian hides in one of the several hidden passages found in the castle while his "guardian" fights them of.

Found in the castle also are warp pads which seem to teleport Brian to set locations, such as his room.

Brian likes to keep things as dramatic as possible, even leaving his blankets on his bed just in case they become important later on. Because of this he's never told Virginia about the stone tablet in his room with a cryptic message on it that could possibly stop her from using ~ATH. This tablet is an integral part of the first act.

His chumhandle is fordingFuture, referencing the fact that he talks to his friends from a different time than them. He uses no capitalization and sometimes breaks his sentences into multiple parts.

Plot Summary

Act One

The Boon of the Programer's Code
~ATH is a very complicated language, but you're actually COMPLETELY OBSESSED with it. You have ALL the manuals. ALL FOUR THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR VOLUMES OF THEM.
Start	Page 1
End	N/A
Length	104 pages
Status	Ongoing
Previous	N/A
Following	N/A

The first act of Gridlocked is titled 'The Boon of the Programer's Code'. It follows Brian, Nitro, and GD's attempts to stop Virginia from finishing her game, which will somehow lead to the world ending.

Click the to open that page from Gridlocked.

• A Pesterchum conversation between the offscreen FF and TM is shown over something called the Rift. It is revealed that someone named AA caused the Rift to explode by coding some 'infernal program'. TM resolves to stop this from happening.
• Virginia Adams is introduced. It's revealed that she is coding a video game in ~ATH named Gridlocked.
• Virginia adds another ~ATH book to her Sylladex.
• Virginia gets pestered by Brian, who is currently hiding in a hidden passage because fire sprites are attacking him, a fact which Virginia doubts. Once more, Brian warns her about the dangers of ~ATH.
• Virginia begins coding again. A part of the code that Virginia wants to delete later on is shown.
• Brian is introduced.
• Brian exits the hidden passage. The battle in the castle is over. All of the fire sprites appear to be dead.
• Brian examines his shipping chart. The following ships are shown: AA <-> FF, AA <-> RH, RH -> GD, GD -> TM, GD -> FF, FF -> TM, TM -> AA.
• Brian attempts to be RH, but can't because RH is unconscious.
• Brian adds another ship to his chart: AA -> GD.
• Brian uses a warp pad to travel back to his room.
• GD pesters Brian, who confides his worries about the world ending to them. GD says that the world likely won't implode.
• Brian inspects the stone tablet by his bedside, which has some sort of cryptic message on it.
• Brian realizes that the tablet's message would probably warn Virginia away from using ~ATH, and attempts to pester her to no avail.
• Nitro is introduced.
• Nitro activates her ~ATH Viewer.
  • Nitro examines her Cooltastic Sword. According to the Viewer, it will be destroyed in two days.
  • Nitro examines herself. For some reason, her death date cannot be revealed.
  • Nitro examines her Plasma Cannon, which will get destroyed on the same day as the Cooltastic Sword.
  • Nitro examines Earth, the moon, the sun, and the universe, which will all get destroyed later in the day, apparently.