#this user is NORMAL about a son of death who takes up fucking gardening she is regular and not thinking any untoward thoughts about it

[vivitalks]

you are a wildflower garden growing in my head

not to be insane about my own fanfiction that i wrote but i am a little insane about this one. so like come be insane with me. join me. dont be afraid. i dont bite (lying) nico deserves hobbies especially when they enable his own self-actualization. anyway. this was written for the bingo prompt "jason remembers nico" i'm normal normal normal about it (still lying) title from the witching hour by the ready set. nico di angelo ass song read it here on ao3

Jason finds Nico among the strawberry plants, staining his hands and knees with dirt.

It's not…like, he's not embarrassed. Plenty of people like to garden. Nico is entitled to his hobbies. Even secret ones. And it’s only a secret because he doubts the Demeter and Dionysus kids would be particularly receptive to Nico tampering with their beloved source of income.

Despite this, he can't help his instinct to be defensive when Jason walks up, the early evening sun haloing him in light.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Nico gestures. “Weeding.”

“Cool,” Jason says, because he’s Jason. “Mind if I join you?”

“To keep me company, or to help?”

“Whichever.”

Nico points to a few rogue sprouts. “If you're here anyway, you might as well get your hands dirty.”

“Done,” Jason says, immediately tearing out the weed with ruthless force. Nico cringes.

“Try to be gentler,” he says, and demonstrates on his own. “Like this. And make sure to get the roots out, otherwise it’ll just grow back.”

“What's the difference?” Jason asks. “We're killing it either way.”

“Yeah, but…” Nico squirms. “Just because we're killing it, doesn't mean we have to make it suffer. Wouldn't you rather die in your sleep than bleed out with all your limbs torn off?”

Graphic, but it gets the point across.

“Fair enough.” Jason looks a little faint, but he tugs out the next weed with a lot more precision, careful to unearth its roots and all.

“I know it takes a little longer,” Nico says, “but mercy is a worthwhile use of time. In my opinion.”

Jason has this look. It lands on Nico. “You never cease to amaze me,” he says. Almost reverently.

Nico turns the color of strawberries. “Shut up. Keep weeding.”

“Aye aye.” Jason salutes and returns to his assigned task. Every so often he'll stop to check with Nico if something is a weed or not, but he's always gentle pulling them out.

After a few minutes, Nico says, “How did you find me?”

Because realistically, anyone looking for Nico would probably never consider checking the strawberry fields. In fact, most people would discourage him from being there at all.

“I don't know,” Jason says, which causes Nico to look up in surprise. A thoughtful look crosses Jason's face. “Lucky guess, I suppose.”

“Hell of a guess,” Nico says, reaching for another green shoot. It comes out of the earth so easily, barely old enough to have burrowed down, and some part of Nico feels a sting at that. Plants uprooted before ever having a chance to grow. Nico knows what that's like.

He also knows that weeds don't mean to be bad. They don't mean to be anything; they're harmful only when rooted near bigger, better flora. It's not their fault they hog the nutrients and land. Like any living thing, all they want is to survive. Their only crime is trying to grow with something prettier flourishing close by.

Nico knows that feeling, too.

He really hates weeding. But he's long since learned it's a necessary part of gardening, and of life. Not everyone can live. Not everyone can grow. Some plants — some people — are poison. Sometimes the only thing to do is to whisper apologies and dig out the roots, and hope that whatever this dead plant becomes next has better luck than what it was first.

“Did you need something?”

“Do I have to need something?”

“No, but…” Nico shrugs. “I don’t know. I assume you hunted me down for something. And you didn’t have to stay here and help me weed.”

“I did not hunt you down,” Jason says indignantly. “I was looking for you because I wanted to hang out with you. You’re doing this, so I’m doing it too.” 

“I'm not trying to say you shouldn't. And I always—” Nico falters. Stupid. This is his boyfriend. If he wanted to continue being an unknowable enigma with emotions under lock, key, and unbreakable steel trapdoor, he wouldn't have gotten himself involved with Jason ‘Heart On His Heroic Sleeve’ Grace. “I always want to hang out with you. I just meant, you didn’t have to help. You could have sat and done nothing.”

“Look, if I'm that bad at weeding, you can just say—”

Nico throws a handful of weeds at Jason and he dodges, laughing. “Shut up. I hate you. I wish I could pull you up by the roots.”

Smiling, Jason says, “You kind of did.”

Nico's brain gives him an error message.

“What does that mean?”

“I mean…you literally uprooted me.” Once again, he has that pensive expression, like Nico is an abstract painting that Jason is admiring while also trying to interpret. It's not the worst way to be looked at. “My whole life before you was Camp Jupiter. The legion. Being Roman. Being Jupiter's kid.”

“I didn't change all of that,” Nico points out. “You did.”

He can feel the chill of the cold ground through his jeans. Every inch of his palms is smudged with dirt. Jason's hands are starting to look the same. There's a dark streak by his hairline, and one on his jaw, and the setting sun keeps glinting off his glasses. It is, on the whole, unfairly attractive of him.

Jason hums like maybe, maybe not. “It still feels like you were the catalyst to all that change. The good change, not the…manipulated-by-Juno change.”

“I appreciate what you're doing,” Nico says, “but you understand that's ridiculous, right? We didn't know each other until after the prophecy and the quest and everything. I can't have had any impact on you before then.”

“But you were at Camp Jupiter. You arrived just before I disappeared.”

“I know that,” — People suspected me, Nico doesn't add — “but we barely spoke.”

“Yeah, but you…” Jason falls silent, his eyebrows drawn together. If Nico was art before, he's a riddle now, and Jason is struggling to solve it. “I just…feel like it was important. The timing.”

Nico buries his fingers in the ground, relishing the way the dirt crumbles and closes around his touch.

“The timing was important,” he says. “My dad knew Hera was planning something, so he sent me to Camp Jupiter like…an advance team. But it had nothing to do with you.” He pauses. “No offense.”

“No, none taken.” Jason’s laugh is a little off. “I don't know. Maybe I'm going crazy.”

“If you're crazy, I belong in an asylum,” Nico says, digging and digging until he can feel the roots of the closest weed. He pinches it between his thumb and forefinger, and watches as it turns brown, then shrivels into a dead, drooping dandelion.

He winces. That's his least favorite weeding strategy. He didn't even mean to do it just now. It's like his own body is saying, You're damn right you should be locked up. See what you can do?

I'm helping plants grow, he retorts.

His brain says, Only you would inflict death and call it ‘helping’.

Nico growls under his breath and stops listening to his brain.

“Anyway, you're not crazy,” he adds belatedly. “A goddess literally played with your memory and identity like Play-Doh, so cut yourself some slack.”

It’s quiet for a moment. Nico figures Jason is deep in thought, but when he glances up, he sees a different look on Jason’s face — like he’s just solved the riddle.

“I’ve seen you do that before.”

It’s quiet and distant, Jason’s voice, and weighted with a revelation. Of something, though Nico’s not sure what. Nico doesn’t mean to, but he recoils a little — at the thought of Jason, some previous Jason, watching him ruthlessly murder an innocent plant, maybe even without meaning to.

“At Camp Jupiter,” Jason murmurs.

Those words don’t make sense. They smack into Nico’s memory like birds into a glass window pane, seeking a target and failing miserably.

“What?”

“At camp,” Jason says slowly, his hands resting limply in the loam. Behind the frames of his glasses, his eyes are unfocused. “One of your…first days there. I saw. You killed a hyacinth.”

An icy hand reaches into Nico’s chest, past his ribs, and closes around his heart.

“You saw that?”

Jason nods, still lost in the memory. “You were coming up to the principia, and you knelt to admire the flowers.”

To admire the flowers. Yes. That’s all he'd been doing. The walkway leading to the principia had been gorgeous, elegant flora lining the path in a rainbow of colors, a dozen or more different varieties in bloom. And Nico had only wanted to appreciate their beauty. To breathe in the fragrance of something so alive. 

“As soon as you touched it,” Jason says, “it died.”

Nico flinches.

“I was— I was nervous,” he says anxiously. “You and Reyna had asked to see me, and I was afraid you would decide I couldn’t stay. Couldn’t— be trusted.”

“I…” One of Jason’s hands comes up to rub the back of his neck, smudging dirt all over himself. “When I saw that, I had my doubts. But the way you reacted — like you were scared of yourself.” He shakes his head, his eyes sliding over Nico but with the distinct impression of looking beyond him. “I thought you must not have done it on purpose.”

“I didn’t.” Nico feels sick. He doesn’t know what to do here. Jason can’t even look at him. “I had never done it before, not by accident. I was scared.”

“And then I saw something else,” Jason says, blinking repeatedly. He pulls his glasses down the bridge of his nose and rubs his eyes with grimy hands, leaving the impression of twin shiners behind. But when he pushes his glasses up again, his gaze is sharp and focused. He faces Nico, straightening his shoulders. “That night, I watched you plant a new hyacinth.”

Nico stares. The ground underneath him might as well be thin air. “You…you saw that?”

“It was late,” Jason says, perfectly clear now, growing more certain every second. “I mean, later than anyone should have been up and about, but I left something in the principia, so I went back to get it, and when I came out, you were there. Kneeling by the flowers, just like that morning.”

Nico vividly remembers this. The wilted hyacinth had haunted him that whole day, a lethal combination of guilt and fear in equal measure. Something beautiful and alive was now ugly and dead, because of him. If he could do that to a flower, without even meaning to, what could he do to another person? What if he could stop someone’s heart on contact? How could Nico ever trust his own touch again?

And then something else had arisen, the way a new substance can emerge from two chemicals interacting. Determination. Nico may have been a child of death, but damn it, he could be more than that. He had to be more than that.

“I killed something,” Nico says hollowly. “I wanted to give something else life. To atone.”

Jason puts his dirt-stained hand over the knee of Nico’s equally dirt-stained jeans.

“Nico, I watched you plant that flower. I saw…” He hesitates. “I saw you pray. I couldn’t hear you, but the way you just…” He shakes his head, obviously overcome by the memory. “You didn’t do it for anyone else. You weren’t trying to prove anything to the Romans, you were just trying to make up for your mistake.”

“I didn’t know you were there,” Nico says weakly. How long had Jason stood in the shadows of the principia, a silent observer, as Nico mourned for one dead flower?

Jason ducks his head for a second. “I thought— I didn’t want to embarrass you,” he admits. “I figured you would misunderstand me if I said I had been watching you.”

Well, that’s true enough.

“I forgot,” Jason says, which is a familiar sentence out of his mouth. He grips Nico’s leg tighter. “But now I remember, and I was right. It was important. The timing was important.”

“What timing? What are you talking about?”

“My whole life, I had this feeling like I wanted to be more than who my father was,” Jason says. “I mean, you know. Big Three dad. They named the camp for him. Big shoes to fill, and it wasn’t that I didn’t want to fill them, but a small part of me was always thinking, why me? Why can’t someone else lead? You know?”

Nico nods. He does know.

“And then you came along,” Jason says. “The only other Big Three kid I had ever met. And yeah, at first, you seemed like the quintessential descendant of Pluto.”

“Scary, unapproachable, and surrounded by death?”

Jason breathes a laugh. “Yeah. But then I watched you plant a flower.” A slow-growing smile starts at his lips, then spreads up his cheekbones and illuminates his eyes. “The son of death. Nurturing life. Showing remorse and empathy for the living thing he’d killed, that he didn’t even mean to kill.” There’s impossible brightness in Jason’s gaze. “You were so much more than just the son of Pluto. And I thought: if he can do it, why can’t I?”

Nurturing life. Like now, Nico thinks, deliberately closing his fingers around the base of a strawberry plant. That instance, the one Jason is talking about — that had been the beginning of a chain reaction in Nico, turning all of his fear and self-doubt into stubborn conviction. The slow dawning of his refusal to being bound by his father’s name. He would always be Hades’s son, but sooner or later, he had to become his own man, write his own story, choose his own fate. Be Nico di Angelo, and decide who exactly Nico di Angelo would be.

He’d known then who he wanted to be. Someone who protects. Preserves. Sustains. Someone who accepts death and who cultivates life, who one day strikes a balance between light and dark.

He’s not that person yet. But he’s a hell of a lot closer than he once was. And it began with that hyacinth, planted under moonlight.

To which Jason bore witness.

If Nico believed in coincidences, he would call this one. As it is, he tends to believe that everything happens for a reason. Nico was fated to plant that flower. Jason was fated to watch.

“I’m telling you, Nico, it was you who got me thinking about how I could be more than just Jupiter’s son,” Jason says. “You really opened my eyes. And then a month later, when Juno took me…” He chews his lip. “I didn’t remember that moment until now, but I remember how I felt afterwards, like I wanted to just — do something spontaneous, something completely out of character. Surrender my rank and figure out what Jason Grace could do that Jupiter couldn’t. Even when I had amnesia, and even after that, I still had that feeling. It’s what made it so easy for me to choose Greek, to promote Frank as praetor, and then to stay here.” His fist knocks a quick pattern against Nico’s chest. The rhythm is indistinguishable from Nico’s heartbeat. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised it started with you.”

Nico, historically not great with emotions, pulls Jason in by the shirtfront and kisses him in all his dirt-smudged glory. Jason laughs, but he doesn’t break away to do it, so it vibrates over Nico’s lips and travels down his throat like a mild electric shock.

“What?” Nico asks, pulling away.

Jason’s smile looks indestructible. “Nothing.”

“You laughed.”

“I like when you kiss me,” Jason says, with the sun shining from his dimples. “That’s all.”

Nico blushes. “Oh.”

“I didn’t mean to stop you.” Jason’s lips twitch. “But while I’m at it, I guess I should thank you.”

“Thank me for what?” For kissing you? Nico considers, but he’s not that deluded. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You always say that,” Jason says, “after doing something amazing.”

This blush is not going anywhere, anytime soon. “Well, I didn’t do anything on purpose. I didn’t know you were watching.”

“Exactly. You inspired me without even meaning to.” Jason cups his face, so tender. Always. “Then and now.”

“It’s like you want me to kiss you,” Nico says, because he can’t take a compliment to save his life.

But Jason only grins. “I do want you to kiss me.”

Out of respect for Jason’s request, Nico kisses him again. 

This time, Jason doesn’t laugh.

Nico twists Jason's shirt into his fingers, right over his hips. Jason buries his hands into Nico’s already-tangled hair. A cool breeze rustles the plants on all sides and tickles their exposed skin.

Jason is gentle. Not like Nico is fragile, but more like Nico is worth taking his time. He breathes, “Sorry if I get dirt in your hair.”

“Don’t care,” Nico murmurs.

If only Nico from Camp Jupiter could see him now. Kissing a beautiful boy in a field of living things. 

I did this, he thinks. I nurtured this.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 139: Deku and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Hallway

Previously on BnHA: The cops and Nighteye’s pro hero group took about nine pages to approach Overhaul’s house, only to be stopped by some massive troll of a man before they could ring the bell at the front gate. Everyone was all, “HOW DID THEY KNOW WE WERE COMING?” while ignoring the fact that there were like 70 guys all conspicuously gathered outside this place for like an hour prior to them getting started. Ryuukyuu turned into a dragon and I wanted it to be like this, but so far all she really did was hold the guy down with one of her big dragon claws. Which to be fair was still pretty cool. So she and her group are staying outside to deal with the cave troll while the rest of the heroes head on in. Meanwhile in the secret underground labyrinth beneath the house, Overhaul plotted to have his underlings stall the heroes while he made his getaway. And this is why you don’t ring the fucking doorbell before invading a mafia capo’s house. Just FYI.

Today on BnHA: The heroes finally make it inside the house! So thrilling. Nighteye uncovers a secret passage, and the heroes proceed down below. After smashing their way through a blocked wall, they discover a hallway doing its best impression of that Salvador Dali clock painting. This apparently is the work of one of Overhaul’s henchmen, Mimic, whose quirk allows him to enter objects and control them. Apparently he shot himself up with some Trigger and became a “living labyrinth.” Since Mirio is the only one not physically deterred by this, he activates his quirk and runs ahead before the others can stop him. The rest of the group suddenly falls into a big hole that opens up beneath their feet, landing in a room with three more henchmen. The pros get ready to fight, but Amajiki holds out a hand to stop them, saying he’ll be the one to take them down.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 171 now, so any ETAs will reflect that. My son the musical prodigy.) 

okay, time to get back on this. some holdover thoughts from the previous chapter since I’ve had a couple days to reflect on it:

why the hell didn’t everyone wear kevlar or some shit. you know you’re going up against enemies that will be shooting at you, and if they hit you you’ll lose your quirk. it blows my mind that the pros didn’t suit up with extra body armor knowing this

even worse, because of the way the house is designed, they’re basically going to be sitting ducks. they only know one way in and out of the lower levels of the house. seeing as it’s underground, that means lots of long, narrow tunnels and hallways. they’re in just about the worst strategic position they could be for a raid like this: the enemy knows they’re here, and unlike Nighteye’s team, they actually know their way around the hideout. meanwhile the raid team is inevitably going to either have to split up and get themselves lost, or stick to this stupid plan of taking the most direct route possible to get to Eri, and meanwhile have bad guys shooting quirk-destroying bullets at them the entire way

that being said, they should stick Kirishima out in front and use him as a human shield lol

(ETA: to be fair, the only one that actually ends up getting hit is another one who is normally for all intents and purposes bulletproof. and in his case kevlar wouldn’t have done jack shit because he would have ended up shedding the vest anyway due to his quirk. so fair enough, but the others should have still geared up. no one cares about safety huh)

all right. so let’s see just how screwed these guys actually are

okay so we’re opening with the mafia dudes demanding to know what’s going on, and the cops explaining that this is a raid suckas

the lower level pros are holding the mob guys back while the cooler pros go on ahead

FG’s apologizing for not stopping to take off his shoes since this is an urgent situation. how fucking rude. tracking in all that dirt

oh my god

fucking kidding me with this shit. Bubble Girl in the lead? she barely even has a shirt, let alone any type of armor? is her quirk defensive in any way? let’s hope so

is Nighteye’s quirk even active again yet? right now he’s just a guy in a suit, isn’t he? although he did work with All Might for years, so he probably does have wicked combat skills that we just haven’t seen yet. hopefully

(ETA: wicked combat skills and a six-pack)

I can’t even see Kirishima in this shot. jeez. ridiculous

so as they run, they’re all discussing how the bad guys seem to have known they were coming, and that this is Not Good

I don’t really care about what Aizawa is saying in this panel, but I like that he’s right next to Deku

taking that promise very seriously. well good, since we all know that literally the instant Aizawa lets him out of his sight, Deku is somehow going to end up facing the final boss or something

(ETA: fucking uncanny, though. every fucking time, Deku)

anyway, so they’re logically concluding that Overhaul and the top brass must already be in the basement either hiding all their shit or getting ready to escape

this makes Kirishima very angry

well yeah, Kiri. but bad guys gonna bad guy

still, if it gets you fired up, you go ahead and feel that righteous anger boy

and now Nighteye’s stopping at a random panel in the wall and says this is it

oh, cool

please be a secret door please be a secret door please be a secret dooooor...

yay!

oh shit lol

never mind. close it

ughhhhhhh the centipede guy is using his quirk nooo whyyyy

he’s picking up two of the guys with his centipede arms

to me this is a fate worse than death

WHYYYYY

now Bubble Girl’s using her bubble quirk!

she’s... making bubbles. from her body

they’re floating over to the last bad guy

and they popped in his eyes and he’s screaming “my eyes!!!”

are these... are these just normal bubbles

I don’t really get it but hey! at least it’s not centipede arms!

so she’s restraining the dude and telling the others to go on ahead

and down they go. off to the garden of madness

except that almost immediately they’ve come to a dead end??

this doesn’t look like a normal quirk though. maybe someone has a wall-building quirk? similar to what Cementoss has?

(ETA: this is most definitely Overhaul’s reassembly quirk)

anyway, Mirio says he’ll take a look

oh my god. I finally get to see just how Mirio deals with immediately shedding his elaborate costume and then having to put the whole thing back on again later

oh snap

WELL ISN’T THAT FUCKING CONVENIENT. OKAY THEN

so if Mirio can have a costume that phases with his quirk, why can’t Hagakure have one woven out of her hair that turns invisible along with her? is it just because Horikoshi is a pervert. okay then

(ETA: I’m not even gonna bother getting into this anymore, but just know that I am rolling my eyes at this obnoxious fucking mangaka so damn hard)

anyway, so Mirio’s taking a peek and then reporting back that the path up ahead is exactly like Nighteye described. he says the wall is very thick though

oh, riiiiight

I keep forgetting about the “reassemble” part of Overhaul’s quirk

oh well. time to bust a wall

lol, FG and Static are like, “whoa”

I think this is the first nice thing Static has said about any of the kids

oh shit. now there’s something else happening

the floor is getting all weird and uneven? like it’s getting all warped somehow

um

well this is. annoying

(ETA: actually, “annoying” is the mildest, nicest, most undeservedly polite way possible to put it)

my god I hope none of them is claustrophobic. or ends up being claustrophobic after this, because I sure wouldn’t blame them

the head police guy says this has to be Irinaka’s quirk. that’s the HQ chief

so wait, is that the little guy from chapter 132 who made an arm grow out of his head??

and it doesn’t even sound like they’re sure it’s him

although FG points out that if he got all doped up on quirk enhancers, this isn’t outside the realm of possibility

oh snap! it is him!

oh my god. “I’m not on the ship. I’m in the ship. I am the ship”

LMAO at Fat Gum though

what kind of pathetic excuse for a pro hero can’t even predict that a guy is going to turn into a basement

he’s asking Aizawa if he can erase the quirk, but Aizawa says he can’t without being able to see the quirk users’s body

hold up, does this mean illusionists would be immune to Aizawa’s quirk?? because that is some bullshit. (which I now really want to see)

Amajiki seems like he’s starting to psych himself out here. he’s muttering out loud that if the path keeps changing, they’ll never reach their goal, and the enemy can easily get away

oh shit, it seems like he’s starting to get overwhelmed...?

hey, hey. easy there bud. you guys got this

OH SNAP MIRIO TO THE RESCUE

what a manly dude coming to the rescue of his bro who was starting to freak out. I love Mirio so much

ahhhhhhh he says he can still go on ahead as long as he knows the right direction

ahhhhhhhh I’m suddenly so fucking worried?!?! HE’S SO BRAVE AND I’M TERRIFIED FOR HIM

SON OF A BITCH HE JUST TOOK OFF JUST LIKE THAT BEFORE THEY COULD STOP HIM

oh my god. in the first place, isn’t he blind whenever he uses his quirk? don’t all of his senses disappear? so he can keep pressing forward, but like what happens if he turns the quirk off because he thinks he’s made it through, only he hasn’t made it through? because this isn’t an illusion, as far as I understand it; the Mimic guy is actually warping the passageway

oh my god. forget just the characters; I’m going to end up becoming claustrophobic at this rate

(ETA: yeah this still nopes me out thinking about it. Mirio’s definitely braver than I am, that’s for sure)

but at the very least, Mirio bravely pressing forward seems to have snapped Amajiki out of it

hey guys, guess who ships the shit out of these two now btw. yeah that’s right. me that’s who

so Mimic is thinking that he can’t stop Mirio, but that even if he does make it through, “he won’t be able to do a thing by himself”

idk about that. you should’ve seen what this freak of nature did to almost the entirety of class 1-A in a matter of seconds. while naked no less

wait. this is starting to sound a bit eyebrow-raising. I promise you it was a g-rated beatdown though

oh snap, Mimic is warping the ground and dumping all of the important characters deeper into the basement while closing up the path back up

well that’s nice. so now they’re all sealed up in this death chamber. cool. that’s cool

not that I want it to happen, but a part of me is wondering why Mimic hasn’t just crushed them all yet if he has control over this entire basement

so are they purposely trying to keep them alive? is it to avoid as much legal trouble as possible? are they hoping that if they just incapacitate them, Overhaul can later use his quirk to wipe their memories like he did with that Tarantino gang?

incidentally, every now and then I wonder to myself why someone as intensely rational as Aizawa would keep his hair so long and not just cut it short or tie it back to keep it out of his way. and then panels like this come along and it’s just, “oh yeah, because it’s hot”

(ETA: but ain’t it the truth)

so yeah, they’ve landed in this pit and now here’s some more bad guys!

literally all they have to do is have Aizawa incapacitate them with his quirk one by one and have Deku or Kiri punch them. the rest can sit back and take it easy

(ETA: the fact that they refuse to follow this most sensible of plans throughout the entire arc is one of the more frustrating things about it)

oh snap, but it looks like someone else is finally ready to jump into action after seeing his boyfriend disappear down the enchanted hallway of doom

WELL SHIT, LET’S FUCKING DO THIS THEN. TIME TO EAT SOME SUNS

also. that flashback panel though. that was a middle school uniform. these two have known each other since childhood just like Kacchan and Deku. omggggg

AND MIRIO USED TO HAVE A FUCKING PONYTAIL. TALK ABOUT A 180 DEGREE STYLE CHANGE. NIGHTEYE THIS IS YOUR DOING, DON’T LIE

BONUS:

glad to see the minds that brought us the yaoyorictionary and ochachakaleg are back at it again

so what exactly is the point of the lemilliohelm. I don’t get it. “it was designed so he could put it on quickly and then inevitably have it fall off again almost immediately”

consider my interest piqued at the mention of him being rescued by a hero in the past, though! I went back just now and looked at his flashback in chapter 152, and yeah! now that you mention it!

also! BnHA kids really need to be more careful on flashback bridges because those things are slippery as fuck

so can we get a name for this guy who saved him and inspired him to become a hero, then? I’m super curious about him now

[spiceukonline]

A few wise words: Why the war on drugs is changing

2015 had the highest mortality rate from drug poisonings since records began.

In particular, there were 57 deaths from ecstasy; the highest rate since records began.

Deaths from Cocaine almost tripled in 4 years, nearly quadrupled from previously ‘legal’ highs and increased five-fold for MDMA. 

All the highest since records began.

2015’s statistics on drug abuse told us one thing that we can’t ignore any longer. People are losing their lives.

How we should be fighting back against this problem is a massive conversation in the public sphere once again. The closure of clubs such as Fabric brought with it a dangerous, reactive tone of “they can’t ruin our nights out”; forgetting that people are dying whilst everyone else has fun. Now that the immediate anguish has calmed down, there are a lot of people questioning where we go from here to keep both sides happy.

The term “War on Drugs” hails from the glory days of Richard Nixon. The US’ obsession with shutting down the trade of Narcos, such as Pablo Escobar, brought with it an all consuming mentality that every illegal substance is the devil. Now I’m not saying that they should have opened to floodgates for pills and powders to take over, but by putting such a forceful prohibition into place, they did destroy most chances for any real drug education to take place. And like with a lot of things, what the US did, we followed.

We aren’t the first publication to criticise the current war on drugs

Education

In our national curriculum, we still learn about congruent triangles, photosynthesis and how many wives Henry VIII had. In no way am I saying that this should stop, but for 99% of people who do learn these ‘crucial’ facts, I highly doubt it’s ever made a life or death difference. Drugs education however, could be that important.

My plans to overhaul the educational system in one article is for another day, but this is something that has to be considered. I recently spoke to Fiona Spargo-Mabbs, the founder of the Daniel Spargo-Mabbs foundation. She set up the charity when her own son died of an MDMA overdose at an illegal rave back in 2014. It was the first time he had tried the drug and he didn’t have a clue what it would do to his body. He was just following his friends and trying to have a good time, tragically paying the ultimate price.

Fiona Spargo-Mabbs: “I think before any changes are made we need to take a proper look at what we are teaching children in schools and accept that they need to know more. Whether you think you live in a nice area or not one way or another they will come across this stuff and they need to be prepared”

Quite surprisingly, Fiona was not calling for harsher punishments on all drug users and suppliers. She understood the curiosity that young people felt, and had realised that the current tactics to get rid of them completely just wasn’t working. She now works in schools, telling young people of her own awful experiences, and bringing those tragic stories we hear so often in the news, to life.

Daniel Spargo-Mabbs was only 16 when he died

Their “Making Safer Choices” programme replaces the information that they believe should be taught throughout PSHE lessons and gives students a rounded knowledge of what experiences will greet them as they move forward. This foundation is just one of a number of education-based movements aiming to inform rather than punish those normal kids who are tempted by drugs.

Testing

Alongside these informative services, there are the more controversial, but definitely happening, drug testing centres. It has recently been announced that Preston, Lancashire, will be the first area to bring in purity centres in the new year, for clubbers to decide if they want to use their Class A’s.

Criticised by many as a red stamp saying “drugs are good”, these centres are actually common practice around Europe. Brought in by the charity, The Loop, their purpose is to prevent the maximum amount of harm and essentially save lives. Whether it reduces the risk to first-triers, says if your drugs are too strong or alerts a user of a dodgy batch; they’re doing a good job.

Fiona Measham, University of Durham professor and co-director of The Loop:  “For the first time we’ve been able to offer the testing service to individual users as part of a tailored advice and information package provided by a team of experienced drugs workers. This can help people make informed choices, raising awareness of particularly dangerous substances in circulation and reducing the chance of drug-related problems occurring.”

The Loop’s testing stations at SGP

The testing of purity is actually a very interesting part of this big debate, because what is causing the majority of these new deaths may surprise you. Many expect it’s what the drug is cut with that is poisoning the bodies of takers, but in many cases it could all be down to dosage. An increasing amount of deaths recently are occurring due to the drug containing upwards of 90% MDMA; a far too strong dosgage for the body to handle. Making someone realise that their pill of 200mg is double the necessity needed to get high could save countless lives.

Similar stations have already been used in the UK, at music festivals such as Secret Garden Party and Kendall Calling. At SGP, one in five, out of the 300 people that used the service, reportedly rejected their drugs afterwards. Who knows what could have happened to those festival-goers if they would have carried on popping those pills.

The bigger picture

And it is with this realisation that we are finally getting somewhere. Yes drugs are dangerous, they can cripple people with addiction and stop their heart in a second, but they also happen to give people a fucking good time. And unfortunately, since the dawn of time, if good things have bad side effects, the good side is still tempting. So why are we being naive and expecting to wipe out drugs completely, and why aren’t we learning ways to control it in a safe way?

As well as all this, there is the cynic inside me that says the only reason they aren’t all legal is because our governments missed the boat when taxing them. Alcohol is controlled, moderated and health checked by ministers every year to try and ensure we don’t become addicted to what is one of the world’s most harmful substances. If the government hadn’t decided it was going to tell us all cocaine was evil back in the day, who knows if that could have been the case with some of today’s class A substances.

And what about all the corruption that comes with the illegality of drugs, surely that needs to be taken into consideration. If MDMA was moderated, or at least treated as something real that we need to know about, do you really think kids like Daniel Spargo-Mabbs will be buying from someone they don’t really know? People trafficking, organised crime, extortion, kidnap, murder, addiction. Whilst drugs are illegal, criminals make billions, if it is controlled by the state, we could change a lot of people’s lives.

There are countless reasons to legalise drugs but, at the same time, there are just as many why we can’t. This does not mean the discussion should be ignored altogether and it is important that progressive ways of fighting this problem are considered and explored.

As all the people who spouted that drug abuse was “public enemy number one” slowly start to leave this earth, their opinions die too. Sorry to sound so morbid but sometimes this is the only real direction of change. As more people are taught the ways of safe drug taking, it will spread further at a faster rate and let’s hope it saves more lives in the process. This is not something that we can just change overnight but the sooner we start accepting that getting high isn’t going to go away, the sooner everyone will feel that little bit safer.

“I loved when Bush came out and said, ‘We are losing the war against drugs. You know what that implies? There’s a war being fought, and the people on drugs are winning it.”― Bill Hicks