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#electric children
finalgowrl · 7 months
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oh i am not well
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daredevil-vagabond · 1 year
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I'm only human, I come with knives (and agony)
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gooogoogaagaaa · 1 month
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PETITION TO STOP UNETHICAL COBALT MINING IN CONGO!!
Sign and share with as many people as you can!!!!! Many people, including little kids, are mining in unsafe and unethical conditions in Congo. Sign this petition to stop these horrible conditions and violations of human rights and advocate for boycotting companies that profit from these horrible conditions eg. tech companies, vapes etc!!!!!
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0vergrowngraveyard · 23 days
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hello yes may i introduce you to my new sons?
villain!au brothers! they have no affiliation with eggman, in fact they still dislike the doctor but arent completely against teaming up with him if necessary. they just kinda do their own thing and cause problems for the restoration. i love them
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no-passaran · 2 months
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A newspaper in my country has interviewed Siddharth Kara, one of the experts on what's going on in the cobalt mines in Congo. I think it's very well explained and a must-read to get an overview of this huge human rights violation that is going on. So here I translate it to English, hoping it will reach more people.
Siddharth Kara: "Every time we buy a new mobile phone, we put our foot around the neck of a child in the Congo"
Interview with the author of Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
"The poorest people in the world, including tens of thousands of children, dig the earth in toxic and very dangerous conditions to find cobalt," says journalist and writer Siddharth Kara (Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, 1974). The rechargeable batteries of our mobile phones, tablets, laptops or electric vehicles need this mineral that thousands of children, men, women and elderly people extract from the Congolese mines in inhumane conditions. Kara went there because he had specialized in research on slavery, and in Congo he found a modernized form of slavery. "Time has passed, but the colonial mentality has not," he explains. Everything he saw there and what was explained to him is recounted in Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives (a book that does not have a translation into Catalan, but which has now been translated into Spanish, by Capitán Swing). The photographs and videos illustrating this interview were taken by himself.
—Was it difficult to write this book? —Yes. Firstly, because of the specific difficulty of this area of the Congo: very dangerous, very militarized. There are armed militias. And for the local people there it is dangerous to talk to foreigners, because it can bring them consequences. It was difficult to get there, and then it was difficult to build trust with the people who worked there. I only managed it thanks to this trust, which we achieved little by little, until we were sure that we could do the research with guarantees and ethically.
—What drove you to the Congo cobalt mines? —I had been doing research on slavery since 2000. Around 2016, some African colleagues contacted me and said: “Siddharth, something terrible is happening in the cobalt mines of the Congo, maybe you should go there”. I had no idea what cobalt was. I thought it was a color used for painting. I didn't know it was used for rechargeable batteries. It took me a couple of years to grasp its importance. Then I started making contacts to travel there, and in the summer of 2018 I went there.
—And what did you find there? —The suffering and degradation I saw there were so intense that I decided to return there often to write a book. Hundreds of thousands of the world's poorest people, including tens of thousands of children, dig the earth in toxic and very dangerous conditions to find cobalt and put it into circulation, in a distribution chain that goes to the rechargeable devices and cars that people like you and me use every day. It was a human apocalypse, a total invasion of human rights and the dignity of the Congolese people.
—Could you describe what a mine like this is like, physically? How should we imagine it? —Those who are at the top of the economic chain of cobalt exploitation like to distort the truth, and use the term "artisanal mine". This way, they evoke a kind of picturesque activity, but on the ground it is a dangerous and degrading job. A mine of this kind is a mass of tunnels, pits and trenches filled with thousands of people who dig with shovels, pieces of metal or directly with their bare hands. They fill a sack with earth, stone and mud. Some children rinse it in toxic pools to separate the mud from the cobalt stones, which a whole family pours into another sack. It might take twelve hours to fill a forty-kilo sack or two. For each sack they get paid a few euros, very few, and that's how they live every day. They survive.
This video was filmed by Siddharth Kara: [you can watch the video in the interview link, freely available without any paywall, here]
—Is there any rational organization in these mines? Is there someone who decides who does what to optimize work? —Well, there is a whole gear designed so that the poor and the children of the Congo produce hundreds of thousands of tons of cobalt every year. There, work is usually divided by age and gender. Digging tunnels, which requires a lot of strength, is usually done by young men and teenagers. The digging of small pits and trenches that can be less meters deep is done by women and smaller children. Rinsing this toxic cobalt is usually done by the children. The merchant system to exploit these families and sell the cobalt they produce to the formal industrial mines is very well set up.
—What else do these people at the top of the chain invent? —Another fiction they invent is that there is a difference between industrial and artisanal mining, and that they only buy from the industrial one, where there is no child labor. Not true: all cobalt is mined by children. All the cobalt that the children and peasants extract goes straight to industrial mining. In addition, there is no way to separate what comes from a bulldozer and what comes from a child, once it all pours into the same place in the facility that does the industrial processing before this cobalt is sent out of the Congo.
—You explain that the situation is particularly abusive for women. —Yes. It is a lawless land, and violence is the norm. Women and girls always bear the brunt: they are victims of physical and sexual violence, and almost no one talks about it. It is a major tragedy: they are victims of sexual assaults that are committed in the mines themselves, while they collect the cobalt that we have in our mobile phones.
—You refer to all of this as a new episode of slavery. It is not the first time that the Congo has a decisive material for Western economic development. It happened with uranium for nuclear bombs, for example. History repeats itself. —Exactly. It is important for people to understand that we are not witnessing an isolated case, but the latest episode in a long, very long, history of looting of the Congo, a very resource-rich country, dating back to the colonial period. The first automobile revolution required rubber for tires. The Congo had one of the largest rubber tree rainforests in the world. King Leopold [of Belgium] deployed a mercenary army of criminals and terrorists to enslave the population and make them work to get it. This inspired Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness. The Congo also has abundant reserves of gold, diamonds, nickel, lithium and other metals and minerals that make components for electronic devices…
—These mercenaries deployed by King Leopold, are they still there today, in one way or another? —Yes. On the ground there are militias, or the army, or private security forces that the mining companies hire and that, sometimes, in addition to monitoring, do the work of recruiting children. Under the threat of an occupation, they force an entire town to dig. It's atrocious: we live in an age of supposed moral progress, where everyone shares the same human rights, and yet our global economic order has its knee on the necks of the children and the poor of the Congo, with this huge demand for cobalt that has to fuel the rechargeable economy.
—Has no Western country or international body done anything to stop it? —No. No western country, no government, no big business has lifted a finger to address this tragedy. They talk about maintaining human rights standards in their supply chains, they talk about environmental sustainability, but it's only talk. That is why it is very important that journalists and researchers set foot on the land of the Congo and listen to what the Congolese have to say: that no one protects their rights or their dignity, that they are erasing the environment, that mining it is not done in a sustainable way and the whole countryside is polluted and destroyed by the mining operations. It is enough to walk ten minutes around a mine to see it.
—Does the same happen in all mines? Large Western companies that use cobalt often claim that theirs comes from artisanal mines that meet standards. —Have they gone there? There is no decent mine in the Congo. It does not exist. I'll be happy to take any CEO of any tech company to their mines, where their cobalt comes from. We'll stand there, watching them extract it, and take a selfie with it. Everyone will realize that what is seen behind us is not decent. You will see destruction, millions of trees felled, installations that emit toxic gases that fall on the surrounding towns, on the children, on the animals, on the food. There is no decent mine in the Congo. And they know it. But who will believe the voice of a Congolese if they can drown it out with proclamations of human rights while they continue to make money without measure?
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—Can you explain the role China plays in all of this? You say that it controls the supply chain. —Yes. China controls about 70% of mining production in the Congo. Why do we accept China saying its mines are decent, if they don't even protect the human rights of their own people? Why do we accept a technology company or a car manufacturer saying, "My Chinese partners say they protect human rights there, and that's enough for me"? Why do we accept it?
—Why do you say that a certain transition to green energy is absolute hypocrisy? —When the calls in favor of this transition consist of proposing to consumers that they buy electric vehicles instead of gasoline cars, this is hypocrisy. Because the cobalt and other elements that are used for the batteries of these cars are extracted using methods that are catastrophic for the environment. While in one part of the world we say we want to save the environment and leave a greener planet to our children, in another we are destroying both the planet and the future of their children. How can you save only part of the planet, turning the rest into a toxic dump? How can we give a green planet only to our children, while we let other people's children die? This is hypocritical.
—It is a reflection of the domination that the global north maintains over the south. —We have never given Congo the opportunity to benefit from its own resources. It is a colonial mentality: time has passed, but the colonial mentality has not. It is the same type of colonial plunder from a century and a half ago. It is colonial to say: "Look, we need this, they have it, we take it from them in any way and, when we no longer need it, we leave a catastrophe behind us". There are companies that, recently, have started to pretend that they are becoming aware of this and promised that they would try to use batteries that did not have cobalt, but in reality they said: "Well, we've been caught, we'll look for another mechanism". And they do nothing to solve the catastrophe. Even if we no longer needed cobalt tomorrow, we would have to repair the destruction we have caused these past fifteen years.
—It's the big companies who should be required to react, but what do you think a Western consumer who has gotten upset reading you could do? —The first step to progress in the conquest of human rights is always to make injustice known. Contribute to make everyone knows. Most people are good and, in their hearts, want no part of injustice. It is the few who move based on avarice and greed who pollute the rest of humanity. Outreach and awareness is the first step because it will inevitably activate a lot of people. Change always starts like this. In the case of cobalt, the second step is to think about our consumption habits. Every twelve months, the technology company I bought my phone from offers me a new one. Do I really need it? Every time we buy a new mobile phone, we put our foot on the neck of a child in the Congo. Better think twice, then.
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muppet-facts · 7 months
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Muppet Fact #866
Issues of Spidey Super Stories, a collaboration between Marvel Comics and The Electric Company, can be seen hanging in the window of Mr. Hooper's Store on a couple of occasions.
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Sources:
Sesame Street. Episode 0756. March 10, 1975.
Sesame Street. Episode 1961. May 14, 1984.
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prismaticpichu · 2 months
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Why not, y’know?? :3c Let’s have some fun! Never done one these so go easy on me lmao. Feel free to reblog and ask away!
FF7 Ask List 🌎 ☄️
1. Gotta start with the obvious: favorite character? How come?
2. Favorite piece of music?
3. Favorite scene? What makes it so impactful to you?
4. Favorite installment in the compilation? (EC + AC included!)
5. Have you played every game? If so, wowsers! Respect!
6. Favorite ship? You into platonic stuff? No sweat! Favorite friendship?
7. On that note: favorite character interactions in general?
8. A line of dialogue you find hilarious? Heartbreaking?
9. Who do you consider the most “evil” in FF7? Sephiroth? Jenova? Pres ShinRa? Hojo? Hollander? Lucrecia? Other?
10. Do you believe Sephiroth is being controlled? To what extent?
11. Most underrated character?
12. Most overrated character? (If you think one exists!)
13. Favorite location?
14. Favorite weapon?
15. Favorite member of AVALANCHE?
16. Favorite Turk?
17. Favorite enemy/monster?
18. Favorite DMW cutscene?
19. Favorite fanfic? Fanfics?
20. Have you seen Advent Children? Thoughts??
21. If you could have one plushie of a character, who’d it be?
22. What is YOUR ideal Nibelheim fix-it? <3
23. If you could say one thing to one character, who and what would it be?
24. Who do you want to be real?
25. Would you want to be a SOLDIER? What color would you want your eyes?
26. What do you think is each of the First Classes’ favorite snack? (Yep yep we know Seph likes pasta shssjshhs)
27. What do you think is each of the First Classes’ favorite movie?
28. What do you think is each of the First Classes’ favorite song?
29. What do you think is each of the First Classes’ favorite ___? (insert your own!)
30. What adjective would you describe each of the First Classes with? Can only pick one!
31. Write a small letter to one character of the asker’s choice
32. Doodle a pic of one character of the asker’s choice. (Art skills don’t matter here! No judgment <3 Only fun!)
33. Write a 3-5 sentence fic crumb of ___! (Asker’s choice; can be pairing, platonic, or just a single fella!)
34. Make up your own materia/spell!
35. Favorite memory with FF7?
36 Favorite part of the FF7 community? <3
37. Make an FF7 joke/pun :3c
38. What’s a fanon thing that you believed to be canon for the LONGEST time?
39. Favorite fan theory?
40. Favorite side quest?
41. Favorite cutscene?
42. What’s one thing about any of the FF7 games (+ AC) that you would change or add?
43. How many lines of Loveless do you know by heart?
44. Create a propaganda slogan for SOLDIER
45. Make a silly acronym for SOLDIER!
46. Rank all the games/AC in the compilation
47. What character do you relate the most to??
48. How would you describe FF7 in 7 words?
49. What got you into the series?! <3
50. Bonus! Ask your own question!
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vintagepromotions · 4 months
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'Someday your child may want to be a doctor. Right now, he wants to drive a truck.'
Advertisement for Tyco's US 1 Electric Trucking Play System (1981).
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nerosdayinanime · 5 months
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midnight city(M83)
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im trying to blend the fashion/aesthetic of 80s rockstars, disco, and rhinestone cowboy into a cohesive look. its painful
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atomic-chronoscaph · 1 year
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Morgan Freeman - The Electric Company (1972)
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alithetiredartist · 3 months
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not to be overdramatic but in my willow centric human au the emerald entrails are a band
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khathastrophe · 2 months
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the law did not pass.
we cannot get married, we can be partners, but we are not allowed to call that marriage.
lest we forget we are lesser people.
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anothermonikan · 5 months
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No one look at the reviews from Electric Dreams 1984 on letterboxd, coming out of the reviews section covered in blood, don't do it
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hannahmanderr · 1 year
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DannyMay Day 8 - Electric Core AU
(day 7 is coming, I promise afhdsj)
Words: 1,804 (FFN)
Summary: Vlad wants more than anything to help the child who has fallen to his same fate. Unfortunately for him, his help is the last thing Danny wants. (dialogue prompt borrowed from @danphanwritingprompts)
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“I want to go home.”
Vlad frowned at the boy huddled into the corner of the couch across from him. “You are home,” he replied matter-of-factly before taking a sip of his tea. 
“No,” Daniel said. The dark bags under his eyes stood out in sharp contrast to his paper-white face. His left eye and cheek convulsed in a tic. “You kidnapped me from my actual home.”
Vlad sighed. He’d been over this with the child already. “I didn’t kidnap you,” he said. “I brought you here to help you, my dear boy. I told you, I’m the only one who can truly help you.” The fact that he continued to ignore this fact was beginning to irk Vlad a little, but it was more hurtful than anything.
Daniel pulled his knees even tighter into his chest as his face twitched again. “I had Sam and Tucker. They would’ve helped me.”
“I certainly believe they would have attempted to help you, but their success in doing so is a completely different matter. Do you think they can even begin to understand the things you’re going through? The being you’ve become?”
“Don’t say that!” Daniel shouted. His eyes flared momentarily with a toxic green glow. Tiny sparks crackled in his disheveled hair. “I’m fine. We were figuring it out just fine until you showed up and kidnapped me!”
Vlad gingerly set his teacup down and inhaled deeply through his nose. It was… difficult to avoid showing the painful impact of the child’s words. It was even more difficult to avoid retaliating with his own shouts. “Please, my boy,” he pleaded, switching tactics. “Look at yourself. You can barely keep yourself corporeal! It’s a miracle you hadn’t blown out your parents’ circuit system by the time I found you!”
Daniel pressed his hands over his ears and shook his head like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “No, no,” he said as he squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s just a side effect, it’ll wear off soon. It’s just a side effect, it’ll wear off soon.” He continued to repeat the sentence over and over again like a mantra, his face continuing to tic irregularly.
Vlad found himself at a bit of a loss. It had been a while since he’d been in such prolonged, close contact with anyone, least of all a teenager. He was admittedly embarrassed that he didn’t quite know how to conduct himself here. A consequence of choosing to lead a life of reclusivity, he supposed, but it was now proving to be a disadvantageous choice.
Then again, what other choice could he have possibly had? After being quarantined, after losing contact with Jack and Maddie, after discovering just what he’d become…
He resisted a shudder. No, he couldn’t let the same thing happen to this poor child.
Silently, he rose from his armchair and moved toward Daniel, choosing to simply phase through the coffee table. The boy still had his hands pressed over his ears and his eyes shut tight; his mouth continued to move in his mantra, but no sound was coming out. Vlad knelt in front of him. He reached out to take Daniel’s hand, but he hesitated and settled for grasping the edge of the couch after thinking better of it.
“Daniel,” he said, then, remembering how he’d first been introduced to the boy, said, “Danny…” Buttercream frosting, this was hard. He hadn’t been in a position where he’d had to comfort someone other than himself in years. Was he keeping his voice gentle enough? Did he seem calm? He certainly didn’t feel calm.
Focus, he told himself. Taking a deep breath, he began again. “Danny, please,” he begged.
Miraculously, the boy heard him. Watery blue eyes opened and bored straight into Vlad’s. The man had to resist the urge to shy away from Daniel’s intense gaze. He could see the unfiltered power simmering behind those eyes, and he found himself wondering exactly what the child was capable of.
“Please,” Daniel whispered in a cracking voice. “Please… I don’t - I just wanna go home. I just want all of this to stop.” His cheek convulsed again as he lowered his gaze. Almost inaudibly, he said, “I don’t even know what I am anymore.”
Vlad watched in empathetic sorrow. He’d been plagued with the same thoughts for years after his accident and forced quarantine. Even now, he occasionally found himself second-guessing his own existence. In comparison, the boy’s accident had only happened a few weeks ago. Nowhere near long enough to come to terms with the whirlwind of emotional chaos and confusion that came with it.
“You are… a wonder,” he began slowly. Before he could stop himself, he continued, “You have come face to face with Death and denied him - a feat that few others throughout history have been able to accomplish. You - you have been reborn from the elements of your death, into something far greater than an average human. You are nothing short of the miracle that has led you here.” 
Vlad’s own words surprised him. Usually he wasn’t one to wax poetic like that. It was this child, though - this unassuming fourteen-year-old boy who never would have caught his eye otherwise. Something about him compelled Vlad, grabbed him by the shoulders and tore at his heartstrings, stirring in him, for the first time in nearly 20 years, the wrenching pain of care for another.
And he was okay with it. More than okay with it. The realization that he’d meant every word he’d said terrified him, but in the same butterfly-inducing terror that possessed a person just before they took the leap of faith.
He was ready to take that leap.
Daniel stared at him, dumbfounded. “A miracle?” he hissed. His eyes burned with green light again, and Vlad caught a vague whiff of sulfur. “You’re calling this nightmare a miracle?”
Vlad faltered. He hadn’t exactly been expecting this response. “Oh, my child, not like that. Please, I -”
“No!” Daniel shouted. The tears evaporated from his eyes in a tiny puff of steam. Sparks began snapping in his hair again. “I am not your child! Don’t you dare call me that!”
He extended his legs abruptly, nearly knocking Vlad from his feet. The man quickly stood, hands raised. “Danie- Danny, please.” He was struggling to maintain his calm demeanor in the face of a boy rapidly losing control of his already unstable abilities. “All I want is to help you!”
“I don’t want your help!”
Perhaps words weren’t the way to placate him, Vlad was beginning to realize. Maybe a physical demonstration would be more effective. He exhaled and concentrated on the buzzing knot of energy right above his sternum. With the precision of two decades worth of practice, he willed the energy forward, into his arms and hands. He was vaguely aware of the crackling electricity rippling across his scalp and down his spine.
Ever so gently, he expanded his energy further. No need to frighten the boy any more than he already was. But he needed to do this. He needed to show him he could help.
Daniel’s eyes flew wide open. “What are you doing?” he demanded, though his voice trembled. Whether it was from fear or anger, Vlad couldn’t tell.
“I’m trying to show you,” the man explained. In one swift move, he allowed his energy to make contact with Daniel’s, but he was nearly overwhelmed by the sheer strength and ferocity of the child’s aura. A quiet voice in the back of his head began to worry that the boy’s power was too much for either of them to handle.
He silenced that voice quickly. He couldn’t give into that, not now.
Instead, he said, “Can’t you feel it? You and I, we’re the same. Our energies are the same.” It was true. Being so close to Daniel’s own fledgling core, feeling the unwilling yet inevitable ballet between their two spirits, it told him as much. His hot, precise electricity found itself in perfect harmony with the boy’s burning cold lightning storm. The resulting potential was intoxicating. Vlad savored it with every passing second.
He needed this. He needed to help the child, to make him understand just how right it was that he was here.
Daniel, sadly, did not have the same reaction. He yelped and tried to scamper as far from Vlad as possible, resulting in him falling through the back of the couch. By the time Vlad rounded the corner of the couch, Daniel was back on his feet, though his form continued to flicker and his face twitched more rapidly. The snapping electricity in his hair fizzled through strands faster and faster, and Vlad caught sight of an angry red lightning pattern painting the underside of the boy’s jaw, down his neck, and below his collar.
“S-stay away from me!” Daniel shouted, continuing to stumble backward. “We’re not - I’m nothing like you!”
The words stung Vlad like a thousand wasps. Losing all remaining composure, he cried, “That’s not true! Please, Dani- Danny, I can help you! I’ve been through this just like you, I can teach you how to control it, but please, you must calm down before you hurt yourself!” And before I lose you, he added silently.
Daniel’s fingers dug into his biceps. His eyes were shut tightly again, but Vlad could still see the remnants of their toxic green glow seeping through the cracks. His facial tic was uncontrollable at this point. “I’m not - I-I can’t…” he gasped in between short, panicked breaths. The smell of sulfuric ozone was pungent at this point.
Daniel fell to his knees. Hastily, Vlad drew his energy back in and dropped to his knees as well. “Daniel! Can you hear me?”
The boy didn’t respond. Instead, he gasped violently and opened his eyes wide, revealing twin pools of green. “M-my… too - too much,” he choked out as his form flickered wildly. 
The moments that followed happened in quick succession. Vlad, operating purely from his panic, reached forward to put his hands on Daniel’s shoulders. In that moment, he felt every hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand upright; the tang of something metallic could be tasted in the air. He recognized the hallmark signs of the impending disaster and, in the next moment, realized he was too late to stop it.
The instant his hands made contact with Daniel, a blinding white bolt of electricity cracked into existence, forming a ring around the boy’s waist. 
The resounding force launched Vlad backwards and into a bookcase. The back of his head slammed into the edge of a shelf, and he crumpled to the ground.
The last thing he saw as he slipped into unconsciousness was lightning dancing across snow white hair and Daniel’s acidic green eyes.
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vimbry · 1 year
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john L clone replacement theory
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