Oh I forgot to mention this in my rant but this line
made me think that Tott was going to tell Cordax what happened with the whole Monopoly viciously murdering him shenanigan but eh that was another one of my silly cordax interpretations
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if anyone ever gets a haircut that’s me
Wait, let me get the scissors…
Wait, how old does the ai think I am?
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the 02 isn’t for '02, it’s because you’re 2
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–
Chapter 1
–
Would you mind being away from home for a little while?
It’s not a long stay, I promise. So brief you won’t even be missed. But I can’t wait forever for an answer, so- Coming or not? You’re more than welcome to stay there, but you’ll appreciate your time here if you decide to come along. I promise it’ll be electrifying, if not an unforgettable experience by nature.
A gamble, I admit. Truth be told, I wasn’t sold on the idea initially myself. So I asked myself the question as bluntly and straight-forward as I could. But that pool of response was undoubtedly going to be very shallow. You can never take the advice of one person as if a group has spoken, because it’s not like there’s hundreds of that person with which to run the question by again and again.
So I asked myself again. And again. And I kept going until I had quite the number of answers, all of which were yes! Without any real hesitation, and quite decidedly. I suppose that’s a bit strange since I wasn’t feeling particularly privy to the concept.
Regardless, it’s been a while, and surely the opinions originally posited have had time to shape and change with time. Come, let’s be off, and we’ll see what all of me think.
— The Book of Tears —
ＡＲＭＡＧＨＩＤＤＯＮ
Down, and Down, and Down. The sound of splintering wood filling the air, the sickening crack of explosion consuming the oxygen in the space once occupied by the most ironically flightless person in the world.
No debris could inhibit his vision, as his entire head was protected by a sleek black helmet, which consisted of one smooth visor, running the length of his face and opening at the top to allow a black streak of hair to come up from the middle. His jacket, black leather, was opened and sucking as much of the wind in as he plummeted, the wing emblazoned on the back doing little to actually aid his descent.
Off to his right, something yellow flashed. Small, dropping like a rock, cloaked in purple attire which fluttered and flopped in the fall. Looking once at his destination and abandoning all chance of personal safety being upheld on his part, Winger cut through the air and cradled the limp form of Cordax in his arms.
Something dark caught his attention off to the side - but it was too late. The ground was fast approaching. Turning to absorb the impact of flat ground, Winger slammed into two telephone lines, which groaned as they absorbed the majority of the shock, snapping as he touched the ground and sending a violent current through him and into the fragile package he carried. Two blue eyes flared to life at the charge, and Cordax immediately stood up, naive to the circumstances around him.
“I’m up, I’m up.” He glanced about. “Um… The boat is,” And looked up just in time to get him by a shower of wooden debris, varying sizes colliding into the backstreet all around him. Panicking, he ducked under the safety of a slightly extended roof and waited for the splinters to cease dropping.
Now for Cordax, the world was a fair bit bigger than it was for most people, as he was exceedingly short. His yellow, mechanical body did not have the height advantage that would allow him to view things from a heightened perspective, so one glance at Winger told him a piece of wood had skewered his stomach and the son of Ghid now lay bleeding out in the street. Shrieking, he bolted at the top of his speed over to Winger, who sputtered and brushed away the piece of wood, which had only been held propped up by his arm.
“B-Back.” He tensed as Cordax attempted to lift him by the shoulder. “We fell… I think, the boat isn’t exactly functional now.”
“How do you-” Cordax began to inquire, but the large amount of wood shrapnel around him answered his question. “Ah. Right. Racie was on the same side as us, is she-?”
The dumpster on the opposite end of the street suddenly groaned. Bolting over and leaving Winger to struggle upwards on his own, Cordax jumped and strained his legs until he managed to grab the edge, pulling himself up and looking in to see Racie, face-down in mostly paper garbage, all neatly bagged.
Overjoyed, Cordax pulled Racie up and stood appalled at her immediately falling back down in. “Something’s wrong with her!” Cordax pulled at her shoulder, but Winger’s hand dragged him back.
“Something’s wrong with you.” Winger breathed, a shattered beam serving very poorly as a crutch. “She could have a concussion, and we have to be careful with her. My back is hurting like nothing else, so I think we’ll have to wait here until she gets up on her own.”
He slumped down next to the dumpster, leaning against it and squeezing his knee in pain. Cordax joined him after a short taste of the street as he climbed out of the garbage receptacle, coming to the mind-boggling conclusion that it did not taste good at all. “What’s going on?”
“Well, Cordax,” Winger said, looking back upwards as a large glowing orange ball began devouring cars that were flying through the air. “I’d say it’s the end of the world.”
–
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And now, the end begins.
I’ve already announced this behind closed doors, but ＡＲＭＡＧＨＩＤＤＯＮ will be the end of the Bo_ timeline for now. I’ve got other writing endeavors I’d like to try on the Boards, which may or may not (or may) involve a brand-new boards story chronology with a fresh setting, but all that can wait.
I’ve had a real blast making all these stories that I hate five seconds after posting them, and I wanted to send ＡＲＭＡＧＨＩＤＤＯＮ off with as big of a bang as I possibly can. Certain things have been cooking for a while on the offchance that I eventually tackled these concepts, and now I get to, hopefully, finish the series in as satisfactory a manner as I can for everyone involved.
And no, rocks aren’t going to fall resulting in the death of everyone. I hope you’re ready, though, because this segment is going to be violent for pretty much everybody. Who knows, I may even make you shed a tear at more than just the horrifying writing quality.
Oh yeah, and Ghid/Tott is not the same person as skrunkle Ghid. Before we get into a deep dive on that theory.
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I was bored
Is that a phrase? Sucking in the wind? I know there’s “breaking the wind”
I’m all for a great transition, but that seems like something someone of regular height would notice just as simply. Personally, I would’ve gone for the transition when he tries to get into the dumpster.
Also, it’s a bit jarring to go straight from “Cordax diving for cover” to "Cordax notices Winger has been stabbed. A simple mention of a cry of pain, or a sickening sound, would help the flow here.
Says the guy who has just been stabbed, to the kid trying to help someone with a concussion, and the kid seems to be pretty normal as far as we’ve seen. It’s certainly something Winger could say, it’s just kinda strange.
I’m interested in this development, I like the idea of shifting focus to the average trio who’ve just been sorta there this whole time, and Winger and Cordax have a great potential dynamic.
Speaking of Racie, I was reading NOTaHFfan’s critique and something stuck out to me, much like the piece of wood sticking out of Winger…
the critique is still valid, but I live to nitpick.
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Now that Cordax has ranted, it’s my turn, so I’m-
Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down
So, this is mostly going to consist of nonsensical ramblings of someone who hasn’t slept well in a while, so don’t expect any cohesion here.
I’m gonna start with some complaints and nitpicks I have because I’m way better at being negative than anything else…
Last time all the critiques were about writing, now they will be about the plot.
I might be wrong, but this seems like an out of character thing for Renner to do. As far as I remember, in the previous book he tried to avoid casualties as much as possible, but here he nonchalantly yeets the Sun at Ghid’s skyscraper, killing thousands of people as collateral damage. This seems like a bit of an overkill, considering that he had many other ways to dramatically kill Tott at his disposal
How exactly did Ghid do that? Weren’t Renner’s party the ones who tore down the tower, banishing both Tott and Volume to the shadow realm? I get that Renner and Jethryn ain’t the sharpest tools in the shed, but they can’t be stupid enough to deliberately get rid of all the proof they need by themselves and then not realise that they were the ones who did that.
Edit: Oh wait, I just realised that I made a fool of myself. Looks like Diero evaporated Volume using a card:
Nevermind… onto the next question.
I don’t understand why Tott needed to conduct such a complex and elaborate plan to off himself. Couldn’t he have just commanded all the Ghid Dreamers and the Volume body to destroy themselves and then throw himself into a fireplace or something? Or was it all done so that people could find and kill the little fella that Diero and Renner met at the end of chapter 19 who is apparently a completely different Ghid person unrelated to the main Ghid?
Also, when Tomorrow was stuck in the “Dream World”, why did Ghid try to prevent him from remembering things? Couldn’t he have just handed Tom his memories back to make sure that Renner would 100% make it back to the real world, considering how crucial Renner’s arrival was to Ghid’s plan? That would be way simpler than hoping that Renner would figure everything out all by himself (with the help of Chronicler). Or does our Tott/Volume Ghid have no control over the Dream World Ghid? if that’s the case, I might have a theory that the little fella with a round head is actually the same entity as the Dream World Ghid. That would explain this entire situation.
This confuses me a bit. So, Tott is no more, and so is Volume, meaning that the only Ghids left are the ones to the moon, right?
Couldn’t have Tott/Volume/Ghid just ordered Diero to move them from the moon to the sun via a wild card, effectively banished all the leftover Ghids to the shadow realm as well?
Oh wait I forgot about one more Renner-related nitpick. So, when Renner was still in the “Dream World” and had unlimited possibilities, why didn’t he do more with them? He could have created an entire army of Dreamers or at least given everyone in the party powerful weapons to fight Ghid. I find it extremely funny that right now the most well-armed person in the party is Cordax of all people. And he has a butter knife.
Also, I think it’s pretty strange that no combat units ever have any sort of conventional weaponry in these books. In Pakari’s squad only Krelikan was armed and in Renner’s party from BoD only Diero had guns. I know that Renner and Jethryn had powerful Dreamers, but when Diero and Sans were out of commission, these two became completely helpless.
Now that this has been taken care of, let’s discuss the new… first? chapter.
A random skeleton ghif cause I can’t help myself
Why would you leave us on such a cliffhanger?!
Looks like you’ve decided to split this story into two once again. This time one is Winger’s and the other is Renner’s. I like this because now you can focus on the more human, less capable part of the group (Cordax, Winger, Racie) without all the bizarre crazy characters like Diero and Sonus stealing the spotlight. I see you’ve taken my and Cordax’s complaints into consideration.
So, this implies that we will not see the development of Renner and Diero’s story with that strange little fella for a while now, only focusing on other people. I want to find out who the small Ghid person is so badly.
I’ve actually got a little theory about him:
This implies that Ghidisus and Volume are two different people, and we already know that Volume is Tott/the main Ghid, so who is Ghidlius?
The only answer I have is that Ghidius is the “skrunkle Ghid” that Renner and Diero met.
I was expecting this. It does seem like we’re nearing the logical conclusion of the story-
What
The book of weebs is real
I was foolish enough to accidentally click this link and it sent me straight to hell. Why would you do this, Cordax?
Well, that’s what makes me a real book/movie critic: I never fact-check. The only difference is that I don’t get paid for it.
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Ghid will destroy all, for else he will fall, and grimace with gall at them all in his hall.
This is the new conspiracy theory for the final chapter of this book. It is almost guaranteed* to be wrong.
*guarantee does not cover personal injury or damage to property caused by the ARMAGHIDDON.
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so uh
cordax’s opinion was incorrect and cringe
hence why there’s none of that,
and no issue here.
Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye (he has consumed copious amounts of lemon scented hair conditioner)
LOOK GUYS IT’S A REFERENCE
So two things:
- The tower consisted of a room for Ghid and an elevator to get there.
- Sonus destroyed the tower in a manner so as best to consolidate the fall into itself, meaning that after he tore a hole through it, he did his best to carve other sections in a specific manner as to keep the collapsing tower in relatively the same spot:
Now I’m not going to say nobody died, because that would ruin the fun, but I will say there was an elevator descending a little while ago… And as for the screams, what would you expect people to do if they saw a skyscraper blowing up and collapsing?
By jumping head-first off a skyscraper, out of view, so Renner and Jethryn both don’t know what became of him?
So now I’m confused.
…Except I know it’s going to be fun to make you wrack your brain over it, so I won’t say anything decisive yet. Just look back through BoD/BoT and tell me if you’ve ever seen Diero’s wild card do that before.
hint: no
And here is the plot of Tott’s story.
It’s been established in the story that Ghid, for whatever reason, is a pariah, the whole world despising him and some folk taking so poorly to him that an effort is made to annex him from society altogether. Now, the issue is how to go on living a normal life or doing anything without being hounded or killed.
And the answer, as far as Ghid could come up with, was to die.
One Ghid Dreamer had already been created to inhabit the dark wall, so if anyone found their way in, there would not be a lack of a Ghid there. Meanwhile, the actual Ghid (or at least the one that preceded the Dreamers) carves up a wooden housing to inhabit in much the same manner as the Dreamers, with the ultimate goal being to kill Ghid/Volume in a massive spectacle and eradicate ‘Ghid’ once and for all.
Zero was hired by Ghid to mess up the inquiry group sent to investigate the cider factory, having no other existing Dreamers to send (he did have one emergency backup Ghid Dreamer in the basement of the building he tortured Monopoly in). When this group stopped existing for a month, he arranged things as Volume to send a second group consisting on whomever he could pick off the street and a member of his personal guard. He also inquired of a thug with residence in the dark wall to assist in making sure nothing went awry, and did so as Tott to further safeguard himself.
Later, Ghid conferred with Fifty, who informed him that someone closely matching Winger’s description had attacked Monopoly and been abducted. Furious, Ghid decided to head out and locate Monopoly to demand answers, but ran smack dab into the middle of Renner’s own little plot to find him. They went to the tower, which was a Ghid-assembled prototype of what would become Volume’s tower, and the Dreamers accidentally launched a tiny detail which seems to have been forgotten: Ghid had a nuclear missile the entire time.
After the group leaves the dark wall, they go to the cider factory and run right into Fifty trying to finish his process of making Ghids. Tott’s crying out to stop Diero from surprising Winger was Ghid recognizing Winger in his new getup. Fifty rushed to finish the Ghids in time to try and ward the group off, and Ghid had to take the fall and let Fifty be killed to preserve his identity.
Also, Diero told the truth: he really did just send the Ghid Dreamers to the moon 'cause he felt like it. You can see their existence hinted at in BoT when Ghid (Tott) looks away from the Tott body and into those of the Dreamers, who are viewing the night side of Earth from the moon.
Of course, this entire plan came undone the minute Diero bit down on a note Ghid (Volume) had written and Ghid (Tott) had written on the back of. I’m really surprised people didn’t pay attention to that little tidbit. But hey, when you’re a freaking genius, make lemonade.
I think that’s how it goes.
Renner’s arrival was completely contrary to Ghid’s plan.
During the fight against OraNui in the dark wall city, Monopoly turned on the party after Vile_Cephalopod did, and Ghid dumped him inside to keep him from getting killed. His plan to eliminate Volume shifted to focus on Diero once he was under his control, and he interfered with Renner’s thoughts during his stay as Tomorrow to keep him from remembering anything of what happened during his real existence.
Since that point, Renner was loose baggage for Ghid that he didn’t know what to do with, and when he eventually broke free during Ghid’s stupor, he recalled not only everything that happened, but gave himself the ability to just figure out who Tott was. Volume (and since he’s Ghid, also Tott) dashed to Diero as he fell, not because of the book but because defeating Volume without Diero after he had successfully decked Pakari and Wild was near impossible without it looking sketchy.
Of course, he never got far enough to come up with a new plan because Renner cracked out of his prison.
Renner wanted to find Volume because he believed he hadn’t died from the fall, and may continue to evade him. He didn’t learn about the moon Dreamers until after the tower fell.
The main reason is he didn’t know what his limits were, and the second reason is because- well, I guess I’ll just point it out.
That hole in the sky didn’t exactly disappear.
Both Jethryn and Renner were very competent fighters in their own right, but the world is filled with scary things that can blow you in half, melt you into butter, teleport you to a completely different dimension when you crawl into them, and defy the laws of physics entirely. At that point, you’re better off with a Dreamer.
“I planned this from the beginning and it was you two who aligned with my plans”
sigh
So this is going to sound intensely pretentious, but… I did actually plan it this way. I wasn’t happy with only shoving Winger and Racie in near the end where they both acted predictably and never did anything interesting. So I decided to short them even more here and when ＡＲＭＡＧＨＩＤＤＯＮ rolled around, force them into the spotlight in a really big way.
You have had a horrible track record with inferring implications - they’ll be back next chapter.
Can you stoop much lower?
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We need the BoW.
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Ooooh.
Well, I completely misread that. I thought the stick was skewered through him and propped up against his arm. I read it as “his arm was the only thing it was propped up against”, like if not for his arm it would shift while stuck in him, potentially hurting him more, meaning he would have to be careful moving his arm…
In hindsight, how did he brush it away?
Clearly if I’m going to critique things I need to be a better reader.
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With the power of the illustrator’s paintbrush.
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Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
That’s… an extreme case of inefficient use of space
So, about that. There was this bit regarding the elevator that I found particularly confusing:
So, Bird took the elevator for sure, but what did Pakari do? Did he go down the elevator with Bird or did the join our pirate crew? If he did the second thing, how did he react to his colleague getting turned into a fine paste under the skyscraper ruins?
When I said “evaporated” I meant “sent to the Sun” because that’s what happens to you when you get close to it
This is an extremely good retelling of the main story from Ghid’s perspective that clears some things up, so let me summarise:
Ghid’s original plan was to kill the “Volume” body in a big spectacle so that people finally thought that Ghid was done for and he could live a peaceful life, but the plan started falling apart as soon as the Tott body bumped into Renner’s group and fell apart completely when he (Tott) fed Diero that paper. His last resort plan was to kill Volume in front of everyone using Diero, so that nobody would suspect that Tott is also Ghid, but it also fell apart because Renner broke out and exposed Tott. The only option left was to let the Tott body die and let Renner finish his job.
but I’m still confused about a few things, specifically:
Why was Fifty doing that at the first place? Isn’t creating more Ghid a complete opposite to reducing the percentage of Ghid in the environment?
How exactly did this mess up the plan? Was Diero leading the party to Volume’s city because of the note the reason why it failed?
I did pay attention to it, I just couldn’t come up with any theory about it, so I never acknowledged that detail.
On a note related to that, why did Tott order Diero to bring those Dreamers back from the moon? If he just kept them there, it would mean that there would be no Ghids left on the earth (assuming that he would be able to successfully kill Volume) and his plan would have been successfully completed. Or is it to create a new spectacle fight against Ghid because the one with Volume failed miserably?
I’m thinking about this too much, this will all probably be explained at the end of the book anyways.
Right… I still don’t know for what reason though.
Oh. ooooohhhh! This is going to be interesting.
The explanations for everything else satisfy me. Basically, the only thing I haven’t fully figured out yet is Ghid’s genius plan
This post grew so long that I needed to hide its second half as well
It does seem like it. The title of the Ultimate Booo Theoriser requires me to always be wrong when trying to read implications.
That’s where I got confused:
I interpreted this sentence this way: the “home” being the story we’ve been following until chapter 19 and we’re “leaving home” because we’re focusing on an unrelated story (that being armaghiddon) before returning to the main one. Now I realise that those brain gymnastics make no sense at all.
You’ve left me scratching my head trying to understand the actual meaning of the first few paragraphs of chapter one once again…
We’re talking about a guy who can switch between bodies like gloves. Also, people shrink when they get old, and if you apply the cartoon logic this entire series runs on and Ghid’s extended life duration to this biological fact, you get a perfect explanation on how a four meter tall brute turned into a cat sized midget.
So Ghidsus and the little fella being the same makes perfect sense imo
Also, you used meters, the superior system, to describe the height of Ghsussus instead of the usual inferior American football fields. I’m proud.
Yes you can. I wasn’t exactly joking when I said about a particular Christmas present.
Alright, I need to keep you busy for a little more time so that you don’t post another chapter too quick, so I’ll throw some more things at you:
-
There was this implication that in order to create an AI of some kind, you need to use a dead being’s brain as a bace. This seemed like a pretty important plot point, but then it seemed to lead nowhere.
-
The existence of this “AI” character (the one that was used as the fighting ring). It seemed like Tott had some kind of a plan involving him, but then they got separated and we never heard of AI again. Why does he exist in the story at the first place? Is he a user, even?
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Your heart's been achin' but You're too shy to admit it's heartburn and you have a condition please go see the doctor we can't afford to keep living like this
Ghid when asked if he cares about the $25 million building project just to give him a luxury apartment from a '50s rich living magazine
Pakari and Bird left together.
Only if people know about it.
With the gang showing up and finding out about the copious amount of Ghids (and later, with only Diero and Ghid knowing about them being on the moon, when Diero was already working for Tott) things worked themselves out until Renner came back.
Because (and nobody even thought about this at the time, which is sad) the note was written by Volume which compelled Diero to suddenly start singing a specific song against his will. That wouldn’t happen unless Tott and Volume were both the same.
So really, you could’ve cracked Volume’s identity this early on.
Hmm, so why would he…?
Oh definitely mhm definitely yep definitely
Inside we both know what's been goin' on :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
you expect me to know that?
You really want Ghid to be a cat, huh
Maybe that ‘gift’ is less to me and more to you 
Also he went from a gristly armored warrior and remorseless murderer to a cartoon bean idk where you get this from
If you knew the football field units, you’d know four metres translates exactly to thirteen feet, one inch.
It also seemed like I have no idea what I’m doing and am making things up as I go along, but clearly since I’m such a big brianed masterful author who isn’t crying into his sleeves currently, you’re um, you’re the dum dum.
Get owned. 
If the character has a name, the character is a user. That’s what I established a while ago and I’m sticking to it.
Read the subtext and you’ll find out 
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I never even realized that because I thought it was any written message, regardless of who wrote it.
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Ah a new chapter! Very nice, certainly a way to go out with a bang.
Avengers: End Ghid?
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I ran out of the cringe stupid song references for the “hide details” things, so
Sussus Amogus
Pakari and Bird rn:
inhaling deadly amounts of copium intensifies
The gift is for the society in general. It will serve as a warning or something idk
The one thing I learned from you is that in order to become an emperor you need to get high.
Y’see the problem is that I can’t read in general, so I can’t be expected to be able to read the subtext. Moreover, the way I write my theories and critiques is by pressing random keys while banging my head against the keyboard.
Zippy is definitely Heyzorks, but don’t tell him because he doesn’t read these books and thus doesn’t deserve to know
And I never even realised that because I can’t read subtext
End Ghid indeed. How much of the book have you read?
We need more people to theorise about this book because I pretty much monopolised the market and I’m horrible at this job.
Like, where is everybody? Atobe? Monopoly? Chronicler? Anyone? N01?
And where the hell is Winger?
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