So basically this thing is a game changer and I am feeling like my old self.
The first week was really painful to push through the sweating, especially for my face which burned with pins and needles. I had to countdown from 100 and grind my teeth, moving my head side to side before I finally got a sweat going. Now there is zero pain and I sweat in half the amount of time from when I started.
Some things that helped bring the pain to zero when sweating was a beta-alanine supplement and increasing my water intake daily. Before I entered the blanket I took a dose of beta-alanine and jumped in. I got the tingles from the beta-alanine at first but zero hive pain.
I now started lifting some dumbbells in the morning and can chase my nieces around the house without feeling itchy and in pain. Overall this is my new routine now and allows me to live a normal life. I have posted many times on the subreddit and tried many things and many radical diets but at the end of the day sweating it out is the only thing that allows me to live normally. Diet definitely helps though and even now I can tell I have some food intolerances that probably make it worse. But as long as I sweat daily I can eat w.e I want but I might get stomach pains.
Cheers

This is a prompt for a movement-enviroment TF2 based shooter. Players are limited to their base movement to scale around their environment. Players only wear a revolver and a knife. Headshots and backstabs insta-kill enemies. Bullets are hitscan, which makes them travel anywhere instantly. Players can tilt sideways (Q,E).\ \ TACTICAL\ You can't do aim-down-sights, nor would crouching replicate it. Being unable to hold down a place with A-D-S creates an emphasis on "fairness" for the Player's relationship with field of view and movement. How about instead of a Field of View, wouldn't it be more enjoyable to have a View of Field?\ \ When you're suddenly in an encounter with an enemy, most FPS games forces you to hold down Mouse 2, and lock your vision. It's a chore to kill the enemy, worst case. In this game scenario, you have all the visible options at your disposal e.g. shoot at them or run away from them.\ \ In the map, there's many obstacles placed besides paths, objectives, and chokepoints. Some being half your size, making Players able to hide their hitboxes behind most of them. Peeking by Q/E is available anytime, making dodging bullets available on the spot. Peeking to attack makes only your upper body visible, making headshots on you cleaner, but peeking can also make as your bait.\ \ Equipping your weapon takes half a second. Using a knife makes you walk +5 percent faster. Walks pretty much makes the volume of noise, which is like whispering, say. The speed of walks also determine how many steps you walk to a place. Walking gives you away to a nearby enemy. Crouching decreases the amount of noise and number of steps you make when you walk somewhere.\ \ PLAYER HP = +150\ Revolver DAM = -50\ Knife DAM = -38\ Headshots = -150\ Backstabs = -450\ \ Health kits may spawn in restock rooms (e.g. a saferoom). One health kit replenishes +80 HP and gives the player a small healing buff that ends when they get hurt again. Ammo boxes spawn along with health kits. One ammo box replenishes 1/3rd of the revolver's spare ammo.\ \ All revolvers have 24 spare bullets. All unlocks for revolvers are reskins, same as well for knives.\ \ WEAPON AND UTILITY DROPS\ \ A unique and balanced utility system creates a bend of diverged playstyles with simple counters anyone with any utility can do. There are two coexisting utilities a Player uses: Passive and Active Utilities.\ \ UTILITY\ Iron Mask Stats (Passive Mask) Being faceshot while worn deals -50 damage\ -5% slower move speed on wearer\ Breaks after one faceshot\ \ Loud Sneakers Stats (Passive Shoes)\ +7% faster move speed on wearer while active\ More steps on wearer\ \ The Ergonomic Approach Stats (Passive Juice-Hat)\ +38 HP gained on headshot\ Bullets have 2s lasting tracers\ \ Tranq Darts (Passive Bandolier)\ Colorblinds and slows victim for 1s\ -5% bullet travel speed\ \ The Baconer (Active Bottle)\ Vulnerably drink for 3s to get a 20% speed boost for each headshot kill for 10s\ 10s recharge\ \ The Dynamite (Active Stick of Dynamite)\ 3s fuse on thrown\ 5 sticks on wearer, 1 stick recharge 10s\ -30~150 damage capability\ \ The Medkit (Active Medkit)\ Vulnerably heal yourself or friend for 5s to get an +80 HP recovery\ 3 kits on wearer, 1 kit recharge 10s\ \ STRATEGIC\ Not only is this an environment-movement game, but an objective based game. Every mission is a special mission, and you cannot respawn until an important objective is completed. Most objectives require interaction with the world with (F) key.\ \ Two Teams: Government and Opposition\ \ All Players spawn inside the first zone with their role. Friendly fire is enabled! Nobody can identify someone's team if they had not done anything such as shoot or stab someone.\ \ Everyone has a neutral nametag in stealth. In loud, looking at a Player will indicate what team they're in by the color of their tag. Neutral NPCs are usually unarmed civilians. But Neutral hostiles will attack both teams.\ \ The government side is defending by interrupting the objective, or stopping the opposition by stopping them. The Government wins if they wipe out the entire opposition, or the round timer ends.\ \ The opposition side is completing an objective. Members of the opposition team have a task bar on their screen. The Opposition only wins if they complete the entire mission with at least 1 surviving member.\ \ There are two types of objectives: Progressional and Outcome Objectives\ \ Progressional objectives are mini objectives the opposition has to complete to finish an outcome objective, and no respawns on both teams occur until an outcome objective is completed.\ \ In objective missions NPCs will be spawned, depending on zones. Government or neutral NPCs will be alerted when a shot is fired, a person is killed, or a Player has a weapon.\ \ Stealth= No shots fired, Opposition Disguised Under Neutrality\ Loud= Shots fired, Hostile NPCs, Alarms\ \ NPC DAM does a significantly less output with -5 HP per hit, and hits can't land criticals. Bosses like gunships have a high DPS, making them formidable to fight against.\ \ MISSIONS\ The Blacksite Objectives\ Zone 1\ - Find the Cell Block\ - Save Rose (Opposition NPC)\ Zone 2\ - Wait for the Blast Door to Open\ - Stealth: Find and Interrogate the Base Commander\ - Stealth: Access the Terminal Computer\ - Loud: Bring the Ordnance to the Anti-Aircraft Sentries\ - Escape with the Heli\ NPC Types: Government (Soldiers), Opposition\ Environment: Shipment \ The Financier Objectives\ Zone 1\ - Eliminate the Financier (Government NPC) (Loud: Break into the Saferoom)\ - Find the hard disk (Optional Interrogation)\ - Wait for the Heli to Start\ NPC Types: Government (Bodyguards)\ Environment: House on Top of Building with a Saferoom\ \ The Deposit Objectives\ Zone 1\ - Breach the Vault (Plan A: Hack Two Control Points/Plan B: Thermite)\ - Steal the Dead Drop from a Vault Box (Find the Box Number in the Archives, Stealth: Disable the Vault Alarms)\ - Stealth: Escape in the Van\ - Loud: Burn the lobby down\ - Loud: Escape through the hole\ NPC Types: Neutral\ Environment: Bank with Offices and Furniture\ \ The Lakehouse Objectives\ Zone 1\ - Enter the basement (Plan A: Find the File with a Code/Plan B: Thermite) Zone 2 (No NPCs)\ - Enter the Server Room (Find the Drill/Find the C4)\ Zone 3 (No NPCs)\ - Bring all the servers to the boat (Make an Opening to Get Out, The Lakehouse has Alarmed Doors and Windows)\ - Deal with the Attack Helicopter\ NPC Types: Government\ Environment: Safehouse with Furniture by a Coast\ \ The Withdrawal Objectives\ Zone 1\ - Breach the Vault (Plan A: Celebrity Treatment/Plan B: Explosives)\ - Stealth Plan A: Disable the Metal Detectors to the Vault\ - Disguise as the Financier and Meet the Manager (Neutral NPC)\ - Take the Vault Money to the Van (Interrogate and Kill the Manager)\ Zone 2 (No NPCs)\ - Loud Plan B: Enter the Basement and Set Up the Explosives\ Zone 1\ - Set Up the Cage in the Lobby\ - Take the Vault Money to the Cage\ - Wait for the Heli to Arrive\ NPC Types: Neutral\ Environment: Bank with Furniture and Offices\ \ The Scientist Objectives\ Zone 1\ - Enter the Basement\ - Open the Blast Door (Take Down Falcon's Second in Command/Find the Screwdriver and Pliers, Explode the Wall)\ - Override the Control Room (Stealth: Kill All Government Players/Loud: Breach the Control Room with Gas Tanks, Protect the Router Boxes)\ - Escape with the Heli\ NPC Types: Government, Opposition\ Environment: Safehouse with Furniture\ \ The SCRS Objectives\ Zone 1\ - Hack the First Terminal (Bypass the Metal Detectors, Find the Terminal Keycard, Stealth: Disable Government Security NPCs, Loud: Protect the Router Box)\ - Hack the Second Terminal (Stealth: Find the Computer with an access key)\ - Hack the Third Terminal (Stealth: Find the USB)\ - Loud: Deal with the Attack Helicopter (Avoid Two Rockets)\ - Exfiltrate\ NPC Types: Government (Guards), Neutral (Helicopter, Civilians)\ Environment: Office Building with Helipad\ \ The Black Dusk Objectives\ Opposition can opt to start in Loud\ - Stealth: Find and Plant the Bombs\ - Development: Use the Vents to EnteFind the Code and the Keycard in Development\ - Operations: Use the Vents to Enter, Find the Drill to break in\ - Workshop: Find the code from the Head Engineer (Interrogation)\ - Loud: Plant the Bombs\ - Control Room: Unlock a Gate to One Site\ - Development: Use C4/Use the Vents to Enter\ - Operations: Breach Operations\ - Workshop: Find and Bring the Heavy Drill to the Vault/Thermite into the Vault\ - Escape (Plant the final bombs at entrance)\ - Loud: Deal with the Complication (Minigun Unit Blocks the Elevator for the Base)\ NPC Types: Government (Soldiers), Neutral (Minigun, Workshop and Development Workers)\ Environment: Bunker with Shipment and Wide Vents

PC

Discord Username: jade#8765
Character Name and House: Robin Royce
Age: 23
Appearance: There is a roguish charm to Robin Royce, or at least there was. It's the kind of charm that shocks those who see it. His face is scarred, and when he rarely smiles those scars shift and crease. Brown, shaggy hair falls down over his head and his jaw is marked with a thin beard, a sign of a lack of focus on his appearance.
He stands at six feet flat, with broad shoulders and a muscular frame that is constantly hidden beneath thick clothing and plate armour. It is almost as if he has something to hide - and he does, with his back covered in runes reading 'Run Before Your Blood Runs', the words inscribed around the sigil of his house, and a reminder of his time in the captivity of the Mountain Clans.
Gift: Duelist
Skills: Swords (o), Berserker, Defender (e), Logistician
Talent(s): Walking in Nature, Drinking, Training Regimens
Starting Title(s): Lord of Runestone
Starting Location: King's Landing
Family Tree: Here
Alternate Characters: Not. Yet.

AC

Character Name and House: Deana Royce
Age: 22
Appearance: If her brother's roguish charm is diminished by loss and grief, it is like Deana has never experienced a bit of that in her life. If her face is ever absent a smirk, it is because she is grinning, or has her lips together to kiss some pretty woman. Brown hair covers nothing - it frames small features, sharp like knives - pulled back as it is.
She is five feet and nine inches, with a slight and soft build. Deana oft dresses well, in rich fashions purchased at Gulltown markets and commissioned from tailors renowned the world over, but so too does she dress in cloaks and jerkins and other clothes that allow for freedom of movement. After all, you can't sneak into a girl's bedroom in a ballgown, can you?
Gift: Autodidactic
Skills: Burglar, Cautious, Espionage, Beastmaster (Cat)
Talent(s): Swimming, Writing, Drinking, Singing
Starting Title(s): Scion of Runestone
Starting Location: King's Landing

Timeline

• 184 AC - Robin Royce is born to Ser Gilwood Royce and his wife Aemma Grafton, their eldest and only son.
• 185 AC - Only a year later, Deana Royce is born.
• 187 AC - Ser Gilwood and his brother Ser Godric go to war in Dorne, answering a request from the elder brother’s friend - the then-Crown Prince Maelor Targaryen. Both men prove themselves in the conflict. Gilwood retains the respect of his brother-in-arms, commanding the small detachment of Valemen in the Red Mountains, whilst Godric proves himself as a swordsman. It is not all glory, however - Godric’s legs are wounded in a charge, and he will never walk again. When they return, they are heroes. Those who are left, at least.
• 189 AC - In the wake of the conflict, another child is born, a sign of the restored peace. She is named Arwen Royce.
• 193 AC - Yorwyck Royce, Lord of Runestone, passes. Gilwood inherits his title, and only moments after his ascendance puts a sword in his son’s hand and tells him to use it. Robin begins his training, and at a young age is put on a path for violence.
• 197 AC - Gilwood is more a commander than a swordsman, and with his brother’s injuries failing to heal, he chooses to end his son’s stay in Runestone. Robin is sent off to squire for Ser Elys Corbray, a man who he knows can teach the skills required to wield Lamentation. At Heart’s Home, the young man meets and befriends Rolley Grafton and Roslin Corbray. They become an inseparable trio, though Rolley and Roslin are far closer. Robin finds himself drawn to the daughter of House Corbray, but knows his limits. He finds himself drawn to other pursuits, along with honing his skill at arms.
• 199 AC - Deana listens to her sister talk her ear off about a boy she met, and realises she has never felt the same. Instead, the eyes of serving girls have met hers for far too long. She fails to come to terms with it quite then.
• 199-202 AC - Robin finds his ability to fight outmatches those of his friends, and builds a confidence bordering on egotism. He begins to drink, and by the time he is of age, he begins to sleep around. On a return to his home, he finds himself embroiled in more than a few arguments with Ser Roland, a knight of Coldwater Burn. The two become fierce rivals.
• 202 AC - Ser Elys knights his squires. Roslin and Rolley are betrothed, and Robin congratulates them - in a note, that is, as the newly minted Ser Robin leaves Heart’s Home in the night. He does not return home for a while. Deana is betrothed to Alesander Hawthorne, of the West. She is quite unhappy with the arrangement, but Gilwood promises her it is for her own good.
• 202-203 AC - Robin tours Westeros, using his absence and his relative lack of fame to get away with everything. He drinks, he fights, he spends nights in the beds of women all across the realm. Some adventures are successful - lovers across the realm remember his name and rivals remember the bite of his sword - and some are not. One particularly poor example happened on a visit to the capital, where an attempt at seducing Princess Daena turned into the first scar upon his face. It would be one of many. In the meantime, in the Vale, Deana Royce avoids the danger of the Remonstrance, visiting a friend in Gulltown. She is shocked by the event, and thanks the gods for her survival.
• 203 AC - News of the Remonstrance finally reaches the knight, and he is distraught. Present in King’s Landing at the time, a letter is sent from Runestone summoning him home. Irresponsible though he is, Robin does not deny his father’s demand.
• 203-204 AC - The reason for his summoning becomes imminently clear. Lord Gilwood is gathering armies for a war against the Mountain Clans with the approval of the High Steward, and men from all across the Vale gather at Runestone. For the first time in a few years, Robin finds himself reunited with Roslin and her betrothed. He finds himself a section of the army as far away from the pair as possible, initially, but cannot stay away. They remain his friends, and they fight together. WIthin only a few battles, things become a terrible mess. As the first of many tragedies, Ser Rolley is slain by a man of the mountains. He is quickly avenged, but saving him becomes impossible. Both of the surviving members of the trio have little time to grieve, as Roslin is almost captured. Only Robin’s self-sacrifice, surrendering himself in her place, saves her from a grim fate. Beaten, bruised, and bleeding, the young heir to Runestone is carried off into the hills. Meanwhile, Lord Gilwood fights his own battle. Lamentation keeps him strong, but the ageing man cannot match up to his many foes. Hearing of the capture of his son, the Lord of Runestone is distracted and distraught. He is fatally wounded. As he lies bleeding, he summons his son’s rival to his side. Bestowing the Valyrian Steel of his house upon Ser Roland, he bids the knight to save Robin as he passes. He follows his duty. Sneaking into the clan’s camp, the knight of Coldwater Burn finds the newly ascended Lord of Runestone caged and battered. He looks unrecognisable, besides a few consistent scars upon his face. And, branded into his back, are the runes written around the edge of his house’s sigil - in the old tongue, ‘Run Before Your Blood Runs’. Lamentation is placed into his hand as they make their escape, and he proves that not even a thousand wounds can stop him from fighting. In the wake of his saving, Ser Robin apologises to the knight for his previous actions. From that day onward, he begins to change.
• 204 AC - Now a quieter, more caring man, Robin assumes his duties as Lord of Runestone well. He does his duties, and carries his grief upon his shoulders. United in loss, Robin finds himself growing closer to his old friend, Roslin Corbray. His old affection turns to something more as he trains her beyond even the lessons Ser Elys taught them. No longer does he travel the realm, searching for pleasure in distant places. He finds his purpose in the mountains of his home. In the meantime, his sister does travel. Grief affects Deana differently. Her brother dissolves her betrothal, much to the amusement of her betrothed and the anger of her betrothed’s father. Instead, he arranges a betrothal between their younger sister Arwen and Garlan Crane, son of the Warden of the Prince’s Pass. In the meantime, Deana seizes her newfound freedom. Her tour is narrower and less violent than her brother’s, but the purpose is much the same. She spends much of her time in Gulltown, though sails down to Driftmark and the capital when she can.
• 207 AC - Very little changes for the Royces. Robin finds himself building the confidence to admit the truth to his student and closest companion, and Deana finds herself torn between her freedom and her budding love for one of her many flings. As they head to King’s Landing, the lives they have led threaten to close in on them. What matters, mostly, is that they are ready to confront them - well, Robin is. Deana… is like to be taken unawares.

Archetyped NPCs

• Ser Godric Royce - b. 162 AC - Skill: Tactician - Once a phenomenal fighter, and the wielder of Lamentation, Ser Godric suffered an injury to his legs in the Red War that forced him to give up the sword for good. That has not made him a docile man, however. Spending time with his brother has honed his mind for battle, and now Gilwood is gone he has stepped into his position. With a specially constructed saddle, the ageing knight of the realm has once more returned to the battlefield as a commander.
• Lorra Royce - b. 188 AC - Skill: Architect - House Royce’s position as one of the realm’s powerful houses gives them the opportunity to undergo some of the greatest education known to Westeros. None have utilised that more than Lorra, the only daughter of Ser Godric. She has a perceptive and sharp mind, and as her cousins find themselves distracted by their passions and own talents, it has started to fall on the young woman to ensure Runestone keeps up with a developing realm.

I am a first time poster here, as this is my first relationship and the first wrinkle in the relationship. We’ve been together for 4 months, since the end of January. We haven’t had any arguments or anything that had me question our relationship till now. Nothing even close. I just finished my first year of college, she’s finishing her senior year of high school. We met at work, and she actually was the one who pursued the relationship. She’s an extremely clingy girl, always asking for me to come over or for her to come to my house. We’ve had a great relationship, she says all the time how lucky she is to have me and that she wants to marry, have kids.
She told me last weekend she made plans with her friends on Monday because she won’t see them much anymore after she graduates, makes sense so I said have fun and enjoy yourself. As far as I know, those friends are all female. She tells me she doesn’t like the boys in her high school. That night she doesn’t text me at all. I figured she was out late, no biggie. Tuesday she barely texted me, just super dry answers while I was trying to make our normal conversation. Then she says I’m going out again. Claims there’s no service there. Makes me fishy. No text that night either. Does the exact same thing today.
At about 8 she asked me how long I believed the relationship would last, I told her forever because I wouldn’t be dating if I wasn’t pursuing life together. I ask her why she’s been so dry, why she hasn’t been herself. She says she doesn’t know, I continue to ask similar questions till I ask one of the friends who she was hanging out with if they’ve noticed anything has changed. Then said friend didn’t respond to me and told her I said that to her. She then says I’m starting to feel a little different. I responded with I don’t believe what you’re saying, sleep it off and text me tomorrow, I love you. What do I do in the morning? Is she breaking up with me?

Background: So, I can't play Destiny pvp at home. The best internet there is 5 mbit DSL and thats not good enough for a p2p game. I already got banned once for playing on bad internet for playing at a hotel years ago, so I don't take any chances. I do have great internet at work though, a mile from my house. (They ran the fiber about 200 yards from my house and stopped)
So for the past year or so I've been playing PvE at home on my Series X and PvP at work with my old Xbox One X. I can do that at work because I own the business, have a couch and gaming setup in my office. Lately I have felt as if I was just slower than everyone else. Like I didn't have much of a chance in many duels. Its a bad feeling to have. So I asked some questions and decided to upgrade my pvp setup. I got rid of the Xbox One X and brought my Series X to work. I also went all out and bought a new 32" 2K 165 hz gaming monitor with HDR. What a difference.
Going from 30 fPS to 120 FPS with a wider FOV is helpful. The HDR will take some getting used to. The darks areas are really dark now. But the 120 FPS is great. It does feel different in the crucible. With the wider FOV hopefully I won't get ambushed from the side so much. The weirdest thing is that more of my shots land. I had a hand cannon bounty to do from Shax and I was hitting people way better than ever before. Maybe its just a placebo effect, but time will tell.
So if you are still playing on a last gen system the upgrade is worth it. I'd recommend it. You can get a good monitor now for way cheaper than they used to be. I'd not worry about 4K. I can barely tell the difference from 1080 to 4K. I think it would make a bigger difference on a large TV, but with a 32" or below monitor its not that big of a deal. The FPS and response time are what to look for.

I want to grab you from behind your ears
So hard that my nails dig into the skin
And pull you down to my level, so that you can hear-
Really hear what I have to say,
Do my best to make sure it doesn't leak from your brain,
Let the blood drip down my hand, your chin
​
That I do not deserve you,
In any capacity
But this is something greater than me
And I would say that nothing is infinite
That all love fades away eventually
Like the pond in my backyard
Like the blonde in my sister's hair
​
And so it does
But its a wave
On the cosmic shore
Being tugged forever back and forth
​
And I should really reiterate
That this is the deal we made
That this is what we agreed to
​
Love is my mother's rage, love is a sick dog, love is my grandma's unread email
It is death and rebirth and everything and nothing at all
​
But, I don't know
A second is a second is a second is a second
And a second with you is a second broken down infinitesimally
And maybe, I already got my eternity
​
And maybe it doesn't work out this go around
Maybe there'll be vast swathes of time where we are just not together
​
You love me,
Ah - you love me not
Two blades of grass grown around each other, from the roots up, in one life
Rotting, rotting things in the other
​
I'll sit and rust with you under the sun any day of the week
If we are the chips in the paint on my wall
The dirt on my shoes
The grime in my teeth
The graves beside my house that have eroded back into the earth
- I'll just be glad that I got more time with you
​
And I am not a violent person
But this life has shaped me into something unrecognizable
Gnashing teeth and chewed-up gums
And if holding on is an act of war
Then I’m sorry
But it will always be the first thing I do
​
If this love wavers
So be it
It’ll come back
Everything does.
​
https://www.reddit.com/OCPoetry/comments/13x2sci/stag/
https://www.reddit.com/OCPoetry/comments/13x0iib/pursuit_of_perfection/
Songs I think that match the tone I was going for ;>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5UQmzbrE_k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2FazbkwydA

**EDIT: Imgur link in comments because reddit keeps removing for some reason*\*
Hi Reddit,
I recently had a very deep set line appear on the left side of my face (it will be on the right side in the attached photos) - from the corner of my nose to the bottom left corner of my mouth. I've had nasiolabial folds just due to the structure of my face probably for the last 5-6 years, but the line I am referring to is newly formed and I noticed it about a week ago.
I was wondering if this line could possibly be due to a lack of sleep, sleeping on the wrong side of my face, diet, poor reaction to a product, dehydration etc... or if this is simply due to aging.
If it is of the latter category, I am wondering if this deeper set line can be reduced/treated at all? Botox/procedures is something I'm not considering at this time - so I was wondering if there were other methods I could try? I'm not opposed to visiting a derm, as I've always been interesting in seeing one.
Hoping you can please check out my album and let me know what you think. I have quite a few photos of the left side of my face due to me always being texture/skin conscious, but some of them do vary in lighting and setting (outdoors & indoors, etc). Sorry for emojis over eyes, I feel like it's less jarring than just blacking my eyes out! lol
And here is my current product usage and skin type for reference:
Age: 26F
Skin Type: Combo/Oily/Sensitive
Skin concerns: Acne, anti-aging
AM/Morning:
A. Wash with water
B. Olhenrikson Banana Bright Eye Creme
C. Kikamasamune High Moist lotion (as toner)
D. Etude House Soon Jung Hydro Barrier Cream
E1. Etude House Sunprise Mild Watery Light SPF50+ PA++++ sunscreen
**OR, weather dependent**
E2. Beauty of Joseon Matte Sunstick Mugwort & Camelia SPF50+ PA++++ sunscreen stick (this is recently introduced)
PM/Night:
A. Banila Clean It Zero Cleansing Balm (Nourishing)
B. Cetaphil Gentle Foaming Cleanser
C. Olhenrikson Banana Bright Eye Creme
D. Kikamasamune High Moist lotion (as toner)
E. Olay Retinol + Peptide Night Moisturizer (tbh, have been using this for 1+ year & not sure if seeing any effects. May want to switch it out to something more simple).
May incorporate these other products in my PM Routine occasionally:
Paula's Choice 25% AHA, 2%BHA Exfoliant Peel **OR** Cosrx BHA Blackhead Power Liquid - I will use either of these 1x/week if at all, after washing.
Laniege Water Sleeping Mask - may use this 1x or 2x/week, if at all.

Preferably MSc math

It's that time of the month again; Ranking Time! To keep the subreddit less cluttered with everyone and their mom's rankings, we're going to use this thread specifically for the community to post their rankings.
So here we go! Post your rankings, tell what your favorites are and why, etc! Just remember, while you may not agree with a user's list, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, they don't have to explain their choices to you if they don't want to, and there are no wrong answers. Everything is subjective. SO PLAY NICE! ;)
Here's a template list of all of the movies in case you need them:

• Toy Story
• A Bug's Life
• Toy Story 2
• Monsters, Inc.
• Finding Nemo
• The Incredibles
• Cars
• Ratatouille
• WALL-E
• UP
• Toy Story 3
• Cars 2
• Brave
• Monsters University
• Inside Out
• The Good Dinosaur
• Finding Dory
• Cars 3
• Coco
• Incredibles 2
• Toy Story 4
• Onward
• Soul
• Luca
• Turning Red
• Lightyear

We'll do an updated thread after the release of Elemental (2023), so make sure you check back so you can provide an updated list.

Respect Juggernaut

This won’t hurt me! Nothing can!
♫Theme
Cain Marko was the son of nuclear scientist Kurt Marko, who worked in Alamogordo, New Mexico with Brian Xavier. After Brian died in a lab accident, Kurt married Brian’s widow Sharon for her family’s money, resulting in Cain becoming the stepbrother of the Xavier’s son Charles, the eventual founder of the X-Men. Kurt proved to be an abusive father to both Cain and Charles, which combined with Cain’s jealousy over his brother’s telepathy, fostered a lasting resentment between the two of them. After Kurt died saving them from another lab accident, Charles and Cain would end up serving with the army together in Korea. During their service, Cain would stumble across a cave that had a temple dedicated to the powerful mystic being known as Cyttorak. Touching a crimson gem at the heart of the temple, Cain was transformed into Cyttorak’s avatar on Earth, an unstoppable human Juggernaut. Shortly after, the cave collapsed, with Xavier barely managing to escape. Years later Cain would dig his way out and seek revenge on Charles for the perceived slights he had inflicted upon him. In doing so, Cain would come into conflict with the X-Men, Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, and many other superheroes before eventually burying the hatchet with his brother. However, despite joining the X-Men and later Thunderbolts, Cain would return to being a villain each time. Throughout his life and various goals and motivations, only one constant has remained for Cain Marko. No matter the obstacle, he will never stop.
This respect thread is abridged due to Juggernaut’s large number of appearances. A full version is available on the Juggernaut Mega Respect Thread, with links to the unabridged sections posted where appropriate.

Key and explanation of periods where Juggernaut was stronger or weaker than normal

• [50%] Briefly lost half of his power after Black Tom absorbed it
• [X] Was made weaker by Cyttorak after deciding not to do his bidding anymore
• [T] Was made weaker by Cyttorak after he was angered by Juggernaut temporarily becoming Captain Universe
• [Kuurth] Became possessed by one of the Serpent's Asgardian Worthy named Kuurth after picking up his hammer
• [Once and Future] Had his power completely removed by Cyttorak but regained it after taking the place of an alternate universe Cain Marko, though it began to fade
• [Unstoppable] Was given more power by Cyttorak than he had given anyone else

Strength

Unabridged Force Field and Advancing Sections

Force Field

• Needs his helmet to use his force field - Uncanny X-Men #32
• Transforms a metal gauntlet into a new helmet - Amazing Spider-Man #628
• Can summon his helmet and armor out of thin air - Venom: The Madness #1
• Pushes Professor X's wheelchair back with a wave of force - Uncanny X-Men #13
• Stops a 10 ton rolling steel barrel with a current of energy and rolls it back through a wall and into Beast hard enough to knock him out - Uncanny X-Men #13
• Shoots globules of sheer energy, with a single one powerful enough to break a tree in half - Uncanny X-Men #46

Advancing

• Exerts enough pressure to buckle and shatter a metal wall that had 50 times the tensile strength of battleship steel - Uncanny X-Men #12
• [Limits] Loses his footing after some stairs he was climbing are turned to ice by Iceman - Uncanny X-Men #13
• Shatters a concrete power station by running through it - Amazing Adventures #16
• His powers let him swim in water even though he should be heavy enough to sink - Amazing Adventures #16
• [Limits] Sinks in water after Colossus knocks him into it unexpectedly - Spider-Woman (1978) #38
• Knocks Hulk over a hill and shatters it with a single charge - Hulk #172
• Walks through a building while Spider-Man was trying to pull him back - Amazing Spider-Man #229
• [Limits] Sinks to bottom of a 40 foot foundation of wet cement - Amazing Spider-Man #230
• Walks through miles of bedrock and fractures the tectonic plates under Manhattan, which results in a catastrophic earthquake months later - Amazing Spider-Man #629, 628-629
• Holds onto Thor's hammer as it’s returning to him and tackles him through five boxcars and into a building hard enough to shatter part of it and knock him out - Thor #411
• Knocks down a uh... certain skyscraper by charging into it - Spider-Man (1990) #16
• Literally walks over Thunderstrike when he tries to push him back - Thunderstrike (1993) #2
• Makes footprints in concrete - Professor Xavier and the X-Men (1995) #13
• Charges into War Hulk and pushes him through hundreds of meters of rock, though Hulk is eventually able to stop his advance - Hulk #457
  • War Hulk was strong enough to lift and throw one of the pyramids of Giza - Hulk #456
• Rams his fellow Exemplar Stonecutter through a stone staircase - Juggernaut (1999) #1
• [X] Him and Sasquatch collide into each other hard enough to create a large crater in the ground, with Juggernaut being the first to recover - Uncanny X-Men #422
• [X] Climbs through a pile of wreckage and causes the ground the shake and knock cars into the air - New Excalibur (2006) #6-7
• Fights evenly with World War Hulk and pushes him back, undermining the foundation of the X-Mansion, though Hulk is able to knock him away by sidestepping him and adding to his momentum - World War Hulk: X-Men 3
  • World War Hulk was strong enough to prevent the crust of a planet from splitting by shifting tectonic plates - Hulk (2000) #102
• [T] A Raft scientist says he has endless kinetic energy and is unstoppable once he begins charging - Thunderbolts #144
• [T] Charges downwards through 1.3 kilometers of bedrock - Thunderbolts #149
• [Kuurth] The X-Men try at least 42 plans to stop him from walking towards San Francisco that all prove ineffective, including:
  • Face shooting him with a unique energy annihilation beam
  • Teleporting him to the bottom of the sea and the heart of the sun
  • Siryn combining her sound energy with Dazzler's sound-to-light powers to generate an extreme intensity laser
  • Gambit and Rockslide combining their explosion powers to create a detonation that nearly exhausted Cecilia Reyes from the effort of protecting civilians with her force shield
  • Magneto throwing an aircraft carrier into him - Uncanny X-Men #542
• Charges through a force wall government scientists couldn't find a way to penetrate - Dark Avengers #181-182
• D-Cel, a mutant that can slow down kinetic motion to the point objects stop falling, can't stop Juggernaut from advancing towards her - Juggernaut (2020) #1

Unabridged Striking and Lifting Sections

Striking

• Creates an earthquake across a valley that causes a cliff to collapse by slamming the ground - Uncanny X-Men #33
• Stuns Hulk with his blows - Hulk #172
• Backhands a 3 ton steel ball thrown at him by Spider-Man through a building, causing its side to collapse - Amazing Spider-Man #230
• Incapacitates the Thing in three hits - Secret Wars II #7
• Backhands Rogue across Edinburgh and through a stone wall - Uncanny X-Men #218
• Punches Captain Britain through hundreds of meters of ground and incapacitates him with two more strikes - Excalibur (1988) #3
• Knocks out Professor Hulk after a prolonged fight while not wearing his armor or helmet - Hulk #402
  • Professor Hulk was strong enough to punch through doors capable of withstanding a nuclear blast - Hulk #410
• Levels a building with a punch - Deadpool: The Circle Chase #2
• Splinters apart the God Machine and the glacier it was on top of in an exchange of blows with Stonecutter and overpowers him - Juggernaut (1999) #1
• [X] Punches Rhino into a concrete wall hard enough to shatter it - Uncanny X-Men #435
• [X] Causes World War Hulk spit blood with a punch - World War Hulk: X-Men #2
• Punches a force field hard enough to create earthquakes registered at magnitude 4.6 and 8.0 - Hulk #602
• [Kuurth] Destroys more than half of the Raft island prison with a strike - Fear Itself #2, Thunderbolts #158
• [Kuurth] Punches Moonstone miles away - Thunderbolts #160-161
• [Kuurth] Strikes the ground hard enough to create a massive crater and a tremor registered at magnitude 0.6 - Thunderbolts #160-161
• [Kuurth] Levels Salem Missouri with a strike - Fear Itself: The Home Front #3, Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt #3
• [Once and Future] Makes Colossus spit blood with his punches and overpowers him - Amazing X-Men (2014) #17
• [Unstoppable] Slams the ground hard enough to create a massive crater - Amazing X-Men (2014) #19
• Knocks out Immortal Hulk after a prolonged fight with the help of D-Cel and a gamma radiation siphon - Juggernaut (2020) #1
• Shatters a metal vault door - Juggernaut (2020) #4

Lifting, pushing, pulling, throwing, grip, etc.

• Snaps a steel cable as if it were paper - Uncanny X-Men #12
• Sweeps the O5 X-Men aside - Uncanny X-Men #12
• Pulls Hulk's head from behind and starts to break his neck, though he overpowers him due to getting angry - Hulk #172
• Tears apart a solid concrete wall reinforced with steel - Spider-Woman (1978) #37
• Rips off and lifts the corner of a building - Amazing Spider-Man #230
• Lifts a tank by its turret and swings it onto another tank hard enough to wreck both of them - Marvel Team-Up #150
• [50%] Black Tom with half of his power suplexes a building - Marvel Team-Up #150
• Throws the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak into orbit - Marvel Team-Up #150
• Throws a boxcar into a weakened Thor hard enough to hurt him before lifting another one and ramming it into him - Thor #411
• Sends a pile of debris created from two boxcars getting thrown into him flying with a shrug - Thor #412
• Shatters a steel cocoon encasing him - Thor #412
• Sends tanks flying with a swipe of his arm - The All New Exiles (1995) #1
• Holds up a collapsing building - The All New Exiles (1995) #3
• Rips up a massive chunk of the street and throws it into a SWAT van hard enough to crumple it - Spider-Man (1990) #84
• Throws a truck through a building while weakened - Uncanny X-Men #361
• Rips off and swings the corner of a building while weakened - Uncanny X-Men #361
• Starts crushing Thor with a bear hug - Thor (1998) #17
• [X] Pushes a tank onto its back - X-Men (1991) #160
• [X] Flexes out of ice that was covering him - New Excalibur (2006) #2-3
• [X] Holds onto a metal beam with his fingers while being dragged underground until it snaps in half - New Excalibur (2006) #7
• [T] Pins down Luke Cage - Thunderbolts #150
• [Kuurth] Magneto can't stop his hammer after he throws it despite it being made of metal - Uncanny X-Men #541
• Rips off an icicle the size of a person and throws it through a Frost Giant - Punisher Kill Krew #3
• Swings an Asgardian dragon by the tail and into the ground hard enough to crater it - Savage Avengers (2019) #14

Unabridged Durability Section

Durability w/ Force Field/Armor

Blunt

• Only slowed down slightly by a continuous optic blast from Cyclops and a punch and kick from Angel - Uncanny X-Men #13
• [Limits] Angel is able to rip off his helmet after Beast loosens it - Uncanny X-Men #13
• Fine after Hulk strikes him in the back and tears up the rock under him - Hulk #172
• Fine after Colossus kicks him into a stone wall hard enough to make it collapse on them and knock Colossus out - Uncanny X-Men #102
• Started welding his helmet on with a laser torch, making it hard for Spider-Man to pull it off - Amazing Spider-Man #230
• [50%] Fine after Spider-Man yanks out a manhole cover he was standing on while he was stretching his webbing, so that it slingshots him into Black Tom hard enough to make a building collapse - Marvel Team-Up #150
• Started bolting on his helmet, making it hard for Colossus to rip it off - Marvel Team-Up #150
• Unharmed after getting struck with 1.37 kilotons of steel by Nimrod - Uncanny X-Men #194
• No-sells a punch from Rogue that shattered every window on a street - Uncanny X-Men #218
• His force field kills all of the momentum of Thor's hammer after he threw it at him - Thor #411
• Unharmed from Nova and Namorita throwing two boxcars into him - Thor #412
• No-sells a full force hammer strike from Thor - Thor #429
• Hurt but mostly unharmed after getting punched by Post-Crisis Superman - DC Versus Marvel #1
• Knocked out but quickly recovers after getting hurled from Canada to Hoboken by Onslaught - Uncanny X-Men #322
• Fine after War Hulk throws him from Giza to Cairo - Hulk #457
• Fine after getting punched through a concrete wall by War Hulk, though he's able to remove his helmet before he can get up - Hulk #457
• No-sells Spider-Man punching him with everything he had - Spider-Man (1990) #84
• Unharmed by a rain of blows from Thor that shatter the street around them - Thor (1998) #17
• Unharmed by a optic blast from Cyclops that he says had enough force to rip a small planet in half - Cyclops (2001) #1
• Fine after getting punched from Earth to Mars by Skaar - Hulk #602
• [T] Still able to fight after taking several attacks from Thor, Luke Cage, and Iron Man that make a large crater and shatter a cliff - Thunderbolts #150
• [Kuurth] Unharmed after Hope Summers with the powers of the X-Men flies into him hard enough to shatter a highway - Uncanny X-Men #541
• A non-Mjolnir Uru hammer shatters when Thor hits him with it - Thor (2018) #1
• [Limits] Thor makes him spit teeth by hitting him with a bigger Uru hammer, though Thor broke it and dozens more to knock him out - Thor (2018) #1
• Fine after getting punched into the sewers through part of a building and the street by Venom - Venom (2018) Annual #1
• Fine after getting punched through six stories of a building by Quicksand - Juggernaut (2020) #3
• His force field stops Swarm's bees from touching him - X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #19

Piercing/Cutting

• No-sells a bazooka shell - Uncanny X-Men #33
• A spinning helicopter blade breaks upon hitting him - Uncanny X-Men #33
• Isn't cut by Wolverine's claws - Uncanny X-Men #102
• No-sells a concentrated barrage from assault rifles and rocket launchers that would reduce a house to splinters - Amazing Spider-Man #229
• No-sells a point blank tank round - Marvel Team-Up #150
• [Limits] Shatterstar's swords that were forged in a dimension of magic and science are able to cut through his flesh and helmet - Spider-Man (1990) #16, X-Force (1991) #4
• No-sells several tank rounds - The All New Exiles (1995) #1
• [X] No-sells assault rifle rounds - X-Men (1991) #160
• [X] Sabretooth's claws gouge but don't cut through his helmet - X-Men (1991) #162
• [X] No-sells bullets while a knife shatters upon hitting him - New Excalibur (2006) #14
• [X] Still able to fight after getting slashed across the chest and back with a sword by another Juggernaut, and catches the sword in his hand - New Excalibur (2006) #15
• [X] Fine after getting blasted through a concrete wall by some firearm - New Excalibur (2006) #16
• Unharmed from Skaar hitting him with his sword - Hulk #602
• Survives but is knocked out after getting hit by a giant Asgardian rocket launcher - Punisher Kill Krew #4

Sound

• Unharmed by a sonic scream from Banshee that shatters the stone floor under him - Uncanny X-Men #103
• Unharmed by a sonic scream from Siryn - X-Force (1991) #3
• Fine after getting hit by a sonic scream from Siryn that causes a building to collapse - Deadpool (1994) #3-4

Heat

• Unharmed by jets of chemical flame - Uncanny X-Men #13
• The Human Torch’s flames can't penetrate his force field - Uncanny X-Men #13
• Unharmed from a speeding tanker truck crashing into him and exploding - Amazing Spider-Man #230
• No-sells a microwave blast from Firestar that caused his armor to glow white hot - Thor #412
• Unharmed by Firestar melting a pile of steel girders surrounding him - Thor #412
• Unharmed from a vat of molten metal being poured on him - Deadpool (1994) #2
• Hurt but mostly unharmed after falling into molten steel while weakened - Juggernaut (1997) #1
• Rocked but doesn't fall after Inferno blasts him with enough sheer energy to vaporize countless tons of titanium steel in a split second - Avengers (1998) #24
• [X] Was supposedly fatally burned but still able to move briefly after taking the brunt of a flammable liquid explosion that destroyed part of a building - Uncanny X-Men #420
• [Kuurth] Unaffected by Adam-X igniting his blood - Uncanny X-Men #542
• Unharmed by Pyro's flames - Uncanny X-Men (2019) #16

Cold

• Unharmed after falling into a frozen lake - Cyclops (2001) #1
• [X] Fine after getting knocked through a stone wall by a stream of ice from Iceman - Uncanny X-Men #411
• [Kuurth] His helmet is only slightly cracked after Iceman lowers its temperature to absolute zero and Colossus punches it - Uncanny X-Men #541

Electricity

• Unharmed by a 20,000 volt electric fence - Amazing Adventures #16
• No-sells a lightning bolt from Storm - Uncanny X-Men #102
• No-sells a full strength venom blast from Spider-Woman - Spider-Woman (1978) #37
• Hurt but mostly fine after Storm and Spider-Woman blast him with enough electricity to cause a ship to explode - Spider-Woman (1978) #38, Amazing Spider-Man #229
• Unharmed from a million volts arcing over him - Amazing Spider-Man #229
• No-sells Thor calling down a lightning bolt on him - Thor #412
• Still conscious after Bishop channels enough volts of electricity to maintain the city of Hoboken through him while weakened - Uncanny X-Men #322
• Unharmed by electrical blasts from the Max Dillon and Francine Frye Electros - Sinister War #4

Light

• Recovers in minutes from a strobe effect created by Dazzler that she thought would stun him for an hour - Uncanny X-Men #217
• No-sells a photon blast from Dazzler that used all her power and that she says would've punched a hole through a mountain - Uncanny X-Men #217-218

Energy

• Fine after Nimrod knocks him through a concrete wall and into a construction site hard enough to make a crater with an energy blast - Uncanny X-Men #194
• A God-Blast from Thor that crumbles the concrete foundation he was standing on only pushes him back - Thor #412
• Tanks an energy blast from Frankie Raye Nova while weakened - Doctor Strange (1988) #44
• Unharmed after getting hit by an energy blast from Stellaris that created a massive hole in the road - Thunderstrike (1993) #2
• Walks through a continuous bio-energy blast from Chamber, though he's a hurt a little - Generation X (1994) #61
• No-sells an energy blast from Black Tom - Generation X (1994) #61
  • Black Tom's energy blasts can wreck a tank - Spider-Woman (1978) #38
• [X] Survives getting hit by a plasma blast from Havok that created a trench in the ground - X-Men (1991) #162-163
• [Kuurth] Unharmed after Hardball blasts him with a sphere of energy that destroys part of Las Vegas and helps cause an earthquake that collapses skyscrapers - Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt #3-5
• Tanks a blast of the power cosmic from Cosmic Ghost Rider - Wolverine: Black, White & Blood #3

Chemical

• Unharmed by Night Thrasher's acid bombs - Thor #412

Adhesive

• His force field prevents Spider-Man's webbing from sticking to him - Amazing Spider-Man #229, Marvel Team-Up #150

Biological

• Still able to fight after his fellow Exemplar Conquest hits his pressure points - Juggernaut (1999) #1
• [T] Resists being mutated by the Terrigen Mists - Thunderbolts #146
• [Kuurth] Burns out nanites in his body designed to knock him out - Thunderbolts #145, 160
• [Kuurth] Starts dissolving Mercury after she fills his lungs with his internal fauna and antibodies - Uncanny X-Men #542
• Survives but is knocked out by a plant manipulator growing valerian inside of his body - X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #17

Matter Manipulation

• Nimrod's disintegrator beam affects a steel I-beam he was holding but not him - Uncanny X-Men #194

Phasing

• Hurt but still able to fight after Vision briefly phases his hand into his head before increasing his density - Hulk #403
• Unharmed by Viv Vision phasing into him and becoming tangible - Deadpool (2018) #2

Magic

• [Limits] Thor is able to create a cone that negates all mystical energy and removes Juggernaut's force field by making his hammer spin around them - Thor #429
• Unharmed after hurling Stonecutter into the core of God Machine, causing it to explode and release enough mystical energy to destroy a glacier - Juggernaut (1999) #1, Avengers (1998) #24
• [T] Still able to fight after getting hit by cannon shot that had poltergeists smelted into it that emerge out of his shoulder - Thunderbolts #156-157
• Unharmed by the Scarlet Witch's hexes - Uncanny Avengers (2015) #29

Soul/Life Force

• Only has a headache after D'Spayre consumes enough of his soul/life essence to give most mortals a coronary rupture - Juggernaut (1997) #1
• [T] Quickly recovers after running through a human mutated by the Terrigen Mists that could drain life force with a touch - Thunderbolts #146-147
• [Kuurth] Casts out Ghost and Satana after the former combines his intangibility with the latter's magic to try and free his soul from Kuurth/the Serpent's control - Thunderbolts #160

Power Absorption/Nullification

• Rogue can only absorb a portion of his power - Uncanny X-Men #218
• [Kuurth] Rogue trying to absorb his powers incapacitates her - Uncanny X-Men #542
• Cut off his link to Cyttorak while keeping his powers by using the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak to make a new armor - Juggernaut (2020) #3-4
• A power dampener doesn't work on him - X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #14, 18
• The Human-Adaptoid can't use the Absorbing Man's powers to absorb Juggernaut's powers - X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #17

Mental

• His helmet protects him from any mental attack - Uncanny X-Men #13
• Unaffected by Professor X's telepathy - Uncanny X-Men #12
• Unaffected by Rachel Summers telepathy - Marvel Team-Up #150
• Eventually made a smaller helmet from scraps of the original that also protects him from mental attack, which he wears underneath it - Marvel Team-Up #150
• Resists Dazzler using light to hypnotize him - Uncanny X-Men #217
• Psylocke manages to hurt him through his helmet with a psycho blast, though it only stuns him for a moment - Uncanny X-Men #218
• Fine after getting stabbed with Psylocke's psychic knife while weakened - Uncanny X-Men #322
• Resists his fellow Exemplar Bedlam's telepathy - Juggernaut (1999) #1
• Captain Universe can't read his mind - Amazing Spider-Man #629

Durability w/o Force Field/Armor

Blunt

• Fine after Hulk swings him around hard enough to rip off his helmet and send him flying into a cliff - Hulk #172
• Fine after getting tackled from behind and through a wall by Colossus - Uncanny X-Men #183
• Unharmed from a building collapsing on him - Uncanny X-Men #183
• Fine after Rogue absorbs some of his power and throws and flies into him hard enough to create a massive crater in a rail line - Uncanny X-Men #218
• Still able to fight after getting pummeled for nearly a minute by Thor - Thor #429
• [X] Fine after getting tackled through a house by Sasquatch - Uncanny X-Men #432-433
• [X] Unharmed from a double-decker bus crashing into him hard enough to total itself - New Excalibur (2006) #3
• [X] A continuous optic blast from Earth 6141 Cyclops doesn't even slow him down - New Excalibur (2006) #3
• Survives getting thrown to Earth from orbit by Captain Universe - Amazing Spider-Man #629, 627
• [T] King Hyperion hurts his hand punching Juggernaut in the head repeatedly - Thunderbolts #153
• [Kuurth] Tanks getting tackled through the deck of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge by Colossusnaut - Uncanny X-Men #543
• [Kuurth] Still able to fight after getting pummeled by Colossusnaut hard enough to collapse a building - Uncanny X-Men #543

Piercing/Cutting

• No-sells a tank round - Excalibur (1988) #3
• [X] Unharmed by minigun rounds - Uncanny X-Men #433
• [X] Still able to fight after getting stabbed in the abdomen by Rhino's horn - Uncanny X-Men #435

Sound

• [Limits] Incapacitated by tight beam ultra high frequency sonics from Nimrod - Uncanny X-Men #194
• [T] Still able to stand after Iron Man blasts him with enough localized sound to put down a whole regiment - Thunderbolts #150

Cold

• Unharmed from getting encased in ice by Iceman - Uncanny X-Men #33
• [X] Unharmed from getting covered in ice by Earth 6141 Iceman - New Excalibur (2006) #2-3
• [Once and Future] Tanks getting launched into the air by a stream of ice from Iceman - Amazing X-Men (2014) #17

Heat

• [T] Hurt but mostly fine after getting hit by King Hyperion’s atomic vision - Thunderbolts #153

Gravity

• [X] Survives getting sucked in by Xorn's black hole along with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and ending up in the Mojoverse, though they survived as well - X-Men (1991) #164, Uncanny X-Men #460

Light

• [X] Unharmed after getting launched far into the distance by a photon blast from Dazzler

Energy

• No-sells a continuous energy blast from Nimrod right after he used one to create a large hole in a concrete wall - Uncanny X-Men #194
• [X] Fine after getting knocked through a thick stone wall by an energy blast from the Shadow King - New Excalibur (2006) #3
• Unharmed after getting knocked through a concrete wall and from Upper Manhattan to the New Jersey Palisades by an energy blast from Captain Universe - Amazing Spider-Man #627-628

Chemical

• [X] Unharmed by Mammomax's stomach acid - X-Men (1991) #164

Biological

• [X] Possibly unaffected by Polaris trying to reverse his blood flow with magnetism to knock him out - Uncanny X-Men #426

Mental

• Manages to keep moving out of hatred after Professor X attacks him telepathically, though he's knocked out with a second attack - Uncanny X-Men #13
• [Kuurth] Emma Frost is incapacitated from trying to affect his mind - Uncanny X-Men #541-542
• [Unstoppable] Rachel Summers can't read his mind - Amazing X-Men (2014) #19

Unabridged Endurance, Speed, Skill, and Temporary Powers Sections

Endurance and Regeneration

• Barely slowed down by enough sleeping gas to stop a herd of elephants and a gas that causes loss of balance - Uncanny X-Men #12
• Doesn't get tired - Amazing Adventures #16
• Starts to age rapidly due to strange forces in a dimension Eternity cast him into, but is able to remain young as long as he feels hate - Doctor Strange #182, Amazing Adventures #16, Hulk #172
• Doesn't need air, food, or water - Amazing Spider-Man #230, 629
• Quickly regenerates after getting stabbed in the eye and cut several times by Shatterstar's swords - Spider-Man (1990) #16, X-Force (1991) #4
• Still able to move after D'Spayre absorbs most of his power and uses it to reduce him to a skeleton, and quickly regenerates after getting it restored - Juggernaut (1997) #1
• [X] Seems like he needed air after being weakened - Uncanny X-Men #412
• [X] Later walked from somewhere in the Yellow Sea to South Korea however - New Excalibur (2006) #13-14
• [T] Needs air - Thunderbolts #145
• [T] Still able to fight after King Hyperion breaks his knee - Thunderbolts #153

Speed

• Grabs Angel and shoves him into the path of Cyclops optic blast before he can redirect it - Uncanny X-Men #13
• Nearly as fast as Beast and ducks under a tree swung by him - Amazing Adventures #16
• Catches a girder slingshot at him by Spider-Man - Amazing Spider-Man #230
• Slaps Speedball out of the air - Thor #412
  • Speedball was fast enough to dodge gunmen at point blank range - Speedball #1
• Tags Spider-Man with a backhand after tearing off some webbing he sprayed in his eyes - X-Force (1991) #4
• Smashes through a wall to catch two people falling - The All New Exiles (1995) #2
• Fights evenly with Conquest, who was fast enough to grab Quicksilver on the run - Juggernaut (1999) #1, Avengers (1998) #25
• Dodges energy blasts from two Sentinels using some kind of hovercraft - X-Men Forever (2001) #5
• [Kuurth] Catches up to a speedster called Nonstop - Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt #3
• [Kuurth] Colossusnaut says he's faster than him even as he runs into Kuurth and accelerates to 600 miles per hour - Uncanny X-Men #543
• [Once and Future] Tags Nightcrawler and Rachel Summers with backhands and knocks the former into Northstar despite Rachel warning them he would attack with her telepathy - Amazing X-Men (2014) #17

Skill

• [X] Fights well against someone with the full power of the Juggernaut using his skill and experience - Uncanny X-Men #436
• [X] Catches Dazzler after she blinded him by listening for her position - New Excalibur (2006) #19
• [T] Lets a Hand ninja get in close so he can grab him - Thunderbolts #148-149

Temporary Powers

Telepathy

• Somehow absorbed Professor X's telepathy after he tried to drain his powers with a machine - Uncanny X-Men #32
• Reads the O5 X-Men's minds to anticipate their moves - Uncanny X-Men #32
• Knocks out Jean Grey with a mental bolt - Uncanny X-Men #32
• Never used telepathy after this

Mystic Abilities

• Gained mystic abilities while trapped in the Crimson Cosmos - Uncanny X-Men #33, Doctor Strange #182
• Casts mystic spells that shrink Nightmare to his size and makes him collide into him when Nightmare was large enough to hold the Earth in his hands - Doctor Strange #182
• Him and Nightmare cast spells that shatter a chunk of rock and destroy bonds of cosmic force that held Eternity - Doctor Strange #180, 182
• Gave up his mystic abilities in exchange for having his youth restored - Hulk #172

Trion

• Became more powerful than ever after getting possessed by an evil spirit - X-Men (1991) #88
• Grows to giant size - X-Men (1991) #88, Uncanny X-Men #369
• Punches through the fabric of spacetime - X-Men (1991) #88

Captain Universe

• Became Captain Universe after being chosen by the Enigma Force - Amazing Spider-Man #629
• Traps Spider-Man in a force sphere and repairs fractures to the tectonic plates under Manhattan to prevent a catastrophic earthquake - Amazing Spider-Man #629

Kuurth

• Can fly - Thunderbolts #160-161
• Calls down lightning - Thunderbolts #158
• Colossus says his lightning could incinerate armies - Uncanny X-Men #543
• Possesses a man by touching him with his hammer - Uncanny X-Men #540
• Teleports back after Pixie teleports him to the bottom of sea, low Earth orbit, and the heart of the sun - Uncanny X-Men #542

Once upon a time, there was a man. A man who got everything he wanted. In the end it wasn’t enough. In truth, it could never be enough. No amount of power could change who he was. It could never quench his thirst for power. He was now and forever the Juggernaut. And he would never stop.

They didn’t tell us the name of the next kid that disappeared. They didn’t tell us another kid had disappeared at all. We could all tell by the silence what had happened. It spoke volumes. I’m sure they talked about it in great detail amongst themselves. In PTA meetings and City Councils. My parents made sure to turn off the TV at 5 o’clock before the news came on, at least in my home. They’d turn it back on for the 11 o’clock news, when were were in bed and couldn’t hear the details.
The strange thing is, they never told us to just stop going outside. They told us to go in groups, sure, but they never decided, or as far as I could tell even though, to keep us all indoors. I guess that sort of freedom wasn’t something they were willing to give up. Instead, they did the neighborhood watch thing. For those few months, I remember my folks meeting more of our neighbors than in all the time previously, or since. Retirees would spend their days out in their front lawns, watching kids and everybody else coming and going. They’d even set up lawn furniture, with umbrellas, even all through the rains of spring. Cops stopped sitting in ambushes on the highways waiting for speeders and instead started patrolling the streets, chatting with us as we’d pass by. Weekends would see all the adults out in their yards, working on cars in the driveways, fixing the gutters, and so on. They had this weird way of looking at you as you’d ride by. Not hostile stares, but it was like they were cataloging your presence. Boy, eight years old, red raincoat silver bike, about 11:30 in the morning, heading south on Sorensen. Seemed fine.
The next time we saw it, it wasn’t in our neighborhood, and I was the one who saw it first. We were visiting Russ, a sort of 5th semi-friend from school. We rarely hung out, mostly owing to geography. His house wasn’t far as the crow flies, but it was up a steep hill. We spent a Saturday afternoon returning a cache of comic books we’d borrowed. The distance we covered was substantial, as we had decided to take lots of extra streets as switchbacks, rather than slowly push our bikes up the too-steep hills.
The descent was going to be the highlight of the trip, up until I saw the Hidebehind. We were on a curving road, a steep forested bluff on one side. The uphill slope was mostly ivy-covered raised foundations for the neighborhood’s houses. That side of the road was lined with parked cars, and the residents of the homes had to ascend steep staircases to get to their front doors.
I was ayt the back of the pack when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Movement, something brown squatting between two closely parked cars. My head snapped as I zoomed past, and despite not getting a good look, I knew it was that terrible thing. “It’s behind us!” I shouted and started pedaling hard. The others looked for themselves as I quickly rushed past them, but they soon joined my pace.
Ralph’s earlier idea of directly confronting the thing was set aside. We were moving too fast, and down too narrow a street to turn around. Then we saw it again it was to our left, off-road, between the trees. Suddenly it leaped from behind one tree trunk to the next and disappeared again. That hardly made sense, the base of the trees must have been thirty feet below the deck of the street we rode down. One of us, I think it was India, let out one of those strangled screams.
There it was again, back on the right, disappearing behind a mailbox as we approached. That couldn’t have been, it must have outpaced us and crossed in front of us. Logic would suggest there was more than one, but somehow the four of us knew it was the same thing. More impossible still, the pole holding up the mailbox was too thin, maybe two inches in diameter, yet that thing had disappeared behind it, like a Warner Bros. cartoon character. It was just enough to catch a better glimpse of it though. All brown. A head seemingly too bulbous and large for its body. Its limbs were thin but far longer, like a gibbon’s. Only a gibbon had normal elbows and knees. This thing bent its joints all wrong like it wasn’t part of the natural order. We were all terrified to wit’s end.
“The trail!” Ralph shouted, and the other three of us knew exactly what he meant. The top of it was only just around the curve. It was a dirt footpath for pedestrians ascending and descending South Hill, cutting through the woods on our left. It was too steep for cars, and to be honest, too steep for bikes. We’d played on it before, challenging each other to see how high up they could go, then descend back down without using our brakes. A short paved cul-de-sac at the bottom was enough space to stop before running into a cross street.
Ralph had held the previous group record, having climbed three-quarters of the way before starting his mad drop. India’s best was just short of that, I had only dared about halfway up, Ben only a third. This time, with certain death on our heels, the trail seemed the only way out. Nothing could have outrun a kid on a bike flying down that hill.
We followed Ralph’s lead, swinging to the right gutter of the street, then hanging a fast wide left up onto the curb, over a patch of gravel, between two boulders set up as bollards, lest a car driver mistake the entrance for a driveway, and then, like a roller coaster cresting the first hill, the bottom fell out.
It was the most overwhelming sensation of motion I’ve ever had, before or since. I suppose the danger behind us was the big reason, and being absolutely certain that only our speed was keeping us alive. I remember thinking it was like the speeder bike scene from Return of the Jedi, also a recent movie from the time. Only this was real. I didn’t just see the trees flashing past it, I could hear the motion as well. Cold air attacked my eyes and long streamers of tears rushed over my cheeks and the drops flew past my ears, I didn’t dare blink. Each little stone my tires struck threatened to up-end me and end it all. Yet, and perhaps worse, half the time it felt like I wasn’t in contact with the ground at all. I was going so fast that those same small stones were sending me an inch or two into the air, and the arc of the flights so closely matched the slope that by the time I contacted the trail again, I was significantly further down the hill.
At the same time, I had never felt more relief, as the thing behind us had no way of catching us now. Somehow, maybe the seriousness of the escape gave us both the motive and the seriousness to keep ourselves under control. Looking back, I marvel that at least one of us didn’t lose control and end up splitting our skulls open.
We hit the pavement of the cul-de-sac below, and didn’t bother to slow down. We raced through the cross-street, one angry driver screeching to a halt and laying on his horn. This brought out the neighborhood watch. Just a few of them at first. Still, we didn’t slow down, our momentum carried us back up the much shallower slope of our neighborhood. Witnesses saw us depart at high speed, and this only brought out more of the watch. We heard whistles behind us, just like our P.E. teacher’s whistle. We figured that was the watch’s alarm siren. Regardless of what happened to that thing, it was behind us. We returned to our homes, shaken, but safe and sound, our inertia taking us almost all of the way there.
Another kid disappeared that Sunday, up on South Hill. We’d suspected it because we could see the lights of the police cars on a high road, surrounding the spot where it would turn out later, one of the kid’s shoes had been found. Russ confirmed it at school on Monday. It was a kid he’d known, lived down the road from his place, went to private school which is why we didn’t recognize his name.
I remember seeing Ralph’s face the next day when he arrived at school. He looked angry. Strong. Like he’d been crying really hard, and now it was over and he was resolved. He said he’d felt guilty because the thing we’d escaped from had gotten the other kid instead. He tried to tell his old man about it, then his mom, then any adult he could. He’d tell them about the monster who hides behind things. They needed to focus on finding and stopping that instead of looking for some sort of creeper or serial killer. Of course, nobody had listened to him. They hadn’t listened to the rest of us either when we’d tried to tell.
So he’d devised a plan. He was calling it the “Fight Patrol,” which we didn’t argue with. If the adults wouldn’t do something, we would. We’d patrol our neighborhood on our bikes, the four of us, maybe a couple more if we could talk others into it. We’d chase it off like that first time, maybe for good, or maybe corner it. Clearly, it could not handle being caught.
Naturally, we brought up the scare on South Hill. He argued that was a bad place. Too isolated, couldn’t turn around easily. We needed to stay on our home turf, lots of visibility, and plenty of the Neighborhood Watch within earshot. Maybe we and the adults working together was the key, even if the adults didn’t understand the problem.
Well, that convinced us. Our first patrol was that afternoon, after school. We watched everybody’s back like hawks. Nothing had a chance to sneak up on us. Nothing could step out from behind a bush without getting spotted. By Friday afternoon there were eight of us. The next week we split up to extend our territory to the next neighborhoods over.
Nothing happened. We never saw anything. Ben thought it was because we were scaring it away. Ralph just thought we were failing, and took it personally. I myself thought the thing had just moved to different parts of town, where the new disappearances were taking place. I told him we should keep it up until the thing was caught.
It was all for naught.
One day, India didn’t show up for school. I asked everybody, the teachers, the office staff, the custodian, my parents. All of them said they didn’t know, and it was so easy to tell that they were lying. That would mark the end of the Fight Patrol.
Ben didn’t show up a couple of days after that. When I got home and collapsed into bed, my mother came in to tell me that Ben’s mother had called. She’d taken him out of school and they were moving elsewhere. I called up Ralph to let him know the news, and he was relieved too.
My last day was Friday, and then I was taken out. Again, I called Ralph so he wouldn’t worry. I guess when there were only two weeks left of school, and it was just grade school, a couple missed weeks don’t amount to much. So I ended up spending the bulk of the summer out in the country, with my grandparents, which was why I brought up my grandpa in the first place.
I suppose I did fine out on their farmhouse. I was safe. There was certainly no shortage of things for a kid to do. I think my mom felt a strong sense of relief too. Things slipped through the cracks.
My grandparents didn’t have cable, too far out of town. They just had an old-school antenna and got a couple of TV stations transmitting out of Canada, Vancouver specifically. I remember one July day, sitting in their living room. My grandmother had just fixed lunch for me and my grandfather and had gone out to do some gardening as we watched the news at noon.
My grandfather was already being ravaged by his illnesses. He was able to get around, but couldn’t do any real labor anymore. He’d lounge in front of the TV in a special lounge chair. He hardly talked, and when he did he’d just mumble some discomfort or complaint to my grandma.
The lead story on the news was the current situation in Farmingham, despite being in the neighboring country, it was still big news in Vancouver, and the whole rest of the region. It seemed the disappearances were declining, but the police were still frantically searching for a supposed serial killer. I didn’t pick up much about what they were talking about, I was a kid after all, but my grandfather was watching intently, despite his infirmity.
He mumbled something, I didn’t catch. I asked him was he said, and as I approached I heard him say “fearsome critters.”
He turned his eyes to me and said again, distinct and in a normal tone of voice, “fearsome critters,” then returned his attention to the screen. “I don’t know why they call them that. Fearsome, sure. But ‘critters?” Makes it sound silly. Like it's some sort of fairy tale that it ain’t. Guess it’s like whistling past the graveyard. Well, they don’t have to worry about them no more, guess they can call them what they like.”
Then he turned to me. “Do you know what it is?” he asked. “Squonk? Hodag? Gouger? Hidebehind?”
“Hidebehind,” I whispered, and he turned back to the TV with a sneer. I had no idea what on earth he was talking about. Remember, this would be years before I learned he spent his youth as a lumberjack. And yet, somehow, I knew exactly what we were talking about.
“Hidebehind,” he repeated. “That will do it. They give them such stupid names. The folk back East, that is. Wisconsin. Minnesota. Ohio. Way back in the old days, before my grandfather would have been your age. Back when those places were covered by forests. They didn’t give them silly names back then, no. Back then they were something to worry about. Then they moved on, though. They all went out West, to here, followed the loggers. So as once they didn’t have to worry about them anymore, they started making up silly stories, silly names. “Fearsome critters,” they’d call them. Just tall tales to tell the greenhorns and scare them out of their britches. Then they’d make them even sillier, and tell the stories to little kids to spook them.”
“Not out here they didn’t tell no stories nor make up any names. It was bad enough they followed us out. I had no clue they even existed until I saw one for myself. Bout your age, I suppose. Maybe a little older. Nobody ever talks about them. Not even when they take apart a work crew, one by one. They just pull the crews back. Wait till mid-summer when the land is dry but not too dry. Then they move the crews in, a lot of them. Do some burning, make a lot of smoke. Drives them deeper into the woods, you know. Then you can cut the whole damn place down. But nobody asks why, nobody tells why. The people who know just take care of it.”
“I guess that’s why they’re coming to us now. All the old woods are almost gone. So they’ve got to. Like mountain lions. I supposed it’s going to happen sooner or later.”
We heard my grandma come into the back door to the utility room, and stomp the dirt off her boots. My grandfather turned to me one last time and said, “Whichever way you look at it, somebody’s just got to take care of it.” Then my grandmother came in from the utility room and asked us how our lunch had been.
Now that I look back at it, that might have been the last time my grandfather and I really had a meaningful talk.
We moved back home in late August. I had been having a fantastic summer. Though looking back, I suppose it could be rough for a still-young woman to be living in her aging parents' house when she’s got a perfectly good husband and house of her own in town.
First thing I did was visit Ralph. He’d been busy. He’d fortified his treehouse into a proper, well, tree fort. He’d nailed a lot of reinforcing plywood over everything. He hadn’t gone out on patrols by himself, of course, but the height of the tree fort afforded him a view of the nearest streets. He’d also made some makeshift weapons out of old baseball bats, a hockey stick, and a garden rake. The sharp rocks he’d attached to them with masking tape didn’t look very secure, but it’d only take one or two good blows with that kind of firepower. He also explained he’d been teaching himself kung fu, by copying all the movies he saw on kung fu movies late at night on the unpopular cable channels. That was classic Ralph.
As for the monster, it seemed to be going away. Its last victim had disappeared weeks previously, part of the reason my mom felt it was time to go back. This had been at night too. What’s more, the victim had been a college student, a very petite lady, barely five feet tall, under a hundred pounds. The news had speculated that their presumptive serial killer had assumed she was a child. I remember thinking the Hidebehind didn’t care. Maybe it just thought she couldn’t run fast enough to get away or put up a fight when he caught her. Like a predator.
At any rate, the college students were incensed. Of course, they’d been hyper-alert and concerned when it was just local kids going missing. Now that it was one of their own the camel’s back had broken. They really went hard on the protests, blaming the local police for not doing enough.
They started setting up their own patrols, and at night too. Marches with sometimes dozens of students at a time. They called it “Take Back the Night.” They’d walk the streets, making sure they’d be heard. Some cared drums or tambourines. They’d help escort people home, and sometimes they’d unintentionally stop random crimes they’d happen across. I felt like this was what the Fight Patrol could have been, if we’d just been old enough, or had been listened to. This would be the endgame for the Hidebehind, one way or another.
I stayed indoors the rest of the summer, and really there wasn’t much left. It doesn’t get too hot in the Pacific Northwest, nobody has air conditioners, or at least we didn’t back then. It will get stuffy though, in August, and I liked to sleep with my window open. I could hear the chants and challenges from the student patrols on their various routes. Sometimes I could hear them coming from far away, and every now and then they’d pass down my street. It felt like a wonderful security blanket.
I also liked the honeysuckle my mother had planted around the perimeter of the house. Late at night, if I was struggling to fall asleep, the air in my bedroom would start to circulate. Cold air would start pouring in over my windowsill, bringing the sweet scent of that creepervine with it, and I’d the sensation before finally passing out.
This one night, and I have no knowledge if I was awake, asleep, or drifting off, but the air in the room changed, and cooler air poured over the windowsill and swept over my bed, but it didn’t carry the sweet smell of honeysuckle. Regardless of my initial state, I was alert pretty quickly. It was a singularly unpleasant smell. A bit like death, which at that age I was mostly unfamiliar with, except a time some animal had died underneath the crawlspace of our house. There was more to it, though. The forest, the deep forest. I don’t know and still don’t know, what that meant. Most smells I associate with the forest are pleasant. Cedar, pine needles, thick loam of the forest floor, campfires, even the creosote and turpentine of those old timey-logging camps. This was none of those smells. Maybe… rotting granite, and the spores of slime molds. Mummified hemlocks and beds of needles compressed into something different than soil. It disturbed me.
So I sat up in bed. I hadn’t noticed before, but I’d been sweating, just lightly in the stuffy summer night heat. Now it was turning cold. Before me was my bedroom window. A lit rectangle in a pitch-dark room. To either side were my white, opened curtains, the one on the right, by the open half of the window, stirred just slightly in the barely perceptible breeze.
Most of the rectangle was the black form of the protective cypress tree. Only the slight conical nature of the tree distinguished it from a perfectly vertical column. To either side was a dim soft orange glow coming from the sodium lamps of the street passing by our house. It was perhaps a bit diffuse from the screen set in my window to keep out mosquitos. In the distance was the sound of an approaching troupe of the Take Back the Night patrol. They were neither drumming nor chanting, but still making plenty of noise. They were, perhaps, three or four blocks away, and heading my way.
For some reason that I didn’t understand, I got up, off of the foot of the bed. The window, being closer, appeared bigger. I took a silent step further. The patrol approached closer. Another step. I leaned to my right, just a bit, getting a slightly wider view to the left of the cypress tree. That was the direction the patrol was coming from.
That was when it resolved. The deeper black silhouette within the black silhouette of the cypress tree. A small lithe frame with a too-bulbous head. It too leaned, in its case, to the left, to see around the cypress tree as the patrol approached. They reached our block,on the other side of the street. A dozen rowdy college students, not trying to be quiet. None of them fearing the night. Each feeling safe and determined, and absorbed in their own night out rather than being overtly sensitive to their surroundings. They were distracted, unfocused If they had been peering into the shadows, if just one of them had looked towards my house, behind the cypress tree, they might have seen the Hidebehind, poking its face out and watching them transit past. But they didn’t notice.
It hid behind the cypress tree, and I hid behind it, hoping that the blackness of my bedroom would protect me. I stood absolutely still, as I had done once when a hornet had once landed on the back of my neck. Totally assure that if I made the slightest movement or made the slightest sound that I’d be stung. I hardly even breathed.
The patrol passed, from my perspective, behind the cypress tree and temporarily out of view. The Hidebehind straightened, ready to lean to the right and watch the patrol pass, only it didn’t lean. Even as I watched the patrol pass on to the right, it stood there, stock still, just as I was doing.
It was then I became aware that my room had become stuffy again. The scent was gone. The air had shifted and was now flowing out through the screen again, carrying my own scent with it. I knew what this meant, and yet I was too paralyzed to react. The thing started to turn, very slowly. It was a predator understanding that it might have become victim to its own game. It turned as if it was thinking the same thing I had been thinking, that the slightest movement might give it away.
It turned, and I saw its face. Like some kind of rotting desiccated, shriveling fruit, it was covered in wrinkles. Circles within concentric circles surrounded its two great eyes, eyes which took up so much of its face. I couldn’t, and still struggle, to think of words to describe it. Instead, I still think in terms of analogies. At the time I thought of the creature from the film E.T., only twisted and distorted into a thing of nightmares. Almost all eyelids, and a little drooping sucker mouth. Now that I’m more worldly, it reminds of creatures of ancient artworks. The key defining feature were the long horizontal slits it had for eyes. You see that in old masks carved in West Africa, or by the Inuit long ago. You see it in what’s called the “slit-eyed dogu” of ancient Japan.
As I watched the wrinkles on the face seemed to multiply. Then I realized this was the result of its eyes slowly widening. It’s mouth, too, slowly dilated, revealing innumerable small razor-sharp teeth. A person, standing in its location, shouldn’t have been able to see in. Light from the sodium streetlamps lit the window’s screen, obscuring the interior. It was no person. It could see me, and it was reacting to my presence. Its eyes grew huge, black.
My own eyes would have been just as wide if not for my own anatomical limitations. I was still watching when it disappeared. It didn’t see it move to the right. I didn’t see it move to the left, nor did I see it drop down out of view. It simply disappeared. One fraction of a second it was there, and then it decided to leave, and so it did. It was not a thing of this world.
There were no more disappearances after that poor woman from the university. I don’t think it had anything to do with me. The media and police all speculated their “serial killer” had gone into a “dormant phase”. There was no shortage of people who tried to take credit. Maybe they deserve it. The thing’s hunting had been on the decline. All the neighborhood watches and student patrols, I think that maybe all that commotion was making it too hard for the Hidebehind to go about its business. Maybe it had gone back to the woods.
Then again, maybe Ralph had been right the whole time. Maybe it really, really, really didn’t like to be seen.
So.
Now I’ve got some decisions to make. I think the first thing I should do is look at social media and dig up Ralph. It’s been a good thirty years since I last talked to him. He ought to know the Hidebehind is back. He’s probably made plans.
Then, there’s the issue of my son. He’s up in his bedroom now, probably still mad at me. Probably confused about why I’d be so strict. Maybe he’s inventing explanations as to why.
I’m not sure, but I’m leaning toward telling him everything. He deserves to know. It’d probably be safer if he knows. I think people have this instinct where, when they see or know something that they’re not supposed to know, they just bottle it up. I think that was the problem with grown-ups when I was a kid. It was the issue with my grandfather, telling me so little when it was almost too late. I think people do it because we’re social animals, and we’re afraid of being ostracized. Go along to get along.
Hell, my son is probably going to think I’m crazy. It might even make him more mad at me. And even more confused. He knows about the disappearances. “The Farmingham Fiend” the media would end up dubbing the serial killer that didn’t really exist. It’s become local “true crime” history. Kids tell rumors about it. It was almost forty years ago, so it probably feels safe to wonder about.
So yeah, I suppose when I say I know who the real killer was, a magical monster from the woods that stalks its prey by hiding behind objects, then impossibly disappears- that I’m going to look like a total nut. I’d think that if I were in his shoes.
Except… people are going to start disappearing again, it’s only a matter of time. The media will say that the Farmingham Fiend is back in the game. Will my son buy that? He’ll start thinking about what I told him, and how I predicted it. Then he’ll remember that he saw the thing himself, he and his friends, even if it was just out of the corner of his eye.
I hope, sooner or later, he’ll believe me. I could use his help. Maybe Ralph is way ahead of me, but I’m thinking we should get the Fight Patrol back together. Father and son, this time. Multigenerational, get the retirees involved too.
Old farts of my generation, for reasons I don’t understand, like to wax nostalgic over their own false sense of superiority. We rode our bikes without helmets and had distant if not irresponsible parents. Yeah, yeah, what a load. I think every new generation is better than the last, because every generation is a progression from the last, Kids these days? They’ve got cell phones, with cameras. And helmet cams. GoPros you can attach to bikes. Doorbell cameras.
It seems the Hidebehind loathes being seen. This time around, with my grandfather’s spirit, my own memories, and my boy’s energy? I think this time we’re finally going to beat it.