dark_market_analysis epitome of incomprehensibility They sat in suits around a polished mahogany table, except for Mercy Plunkett, who was giving the report. She wore a black suit with a modest pink ribbon in lieu of a necktie. "Well, gentlemen," she said briskly (because the other ten people were men; though that might not be representative of current statistics, the Dark Market Analysts didn't care about statistics, unless they were death statistics or similarly morbid things) "sales of darkness are up 25% for this quarter. I think that's something we all can be proud of." A gentleman named Sutton, who was glaringly white (as was everyone except for Caribbean-born Plunkett and Kavanagh, who was inexplicably purple-skinned; see above) raised his hand. "Is that just normal dark or dark dark?" Plunkett kept a smile on her face. "Both kinds of dark. But especially morbid dark, like cancer and typhoons. And global warming." Robokoff spoke without raising his hand. Both his hands slid across the mahogany table and met, cupped, as if strangling a tree. "But what's if we LIKE warm weather?" Plunkett's smile faltered, then flickered out of existence. "You might, Robokoff, but look what happened to poor Kavanagh," she said quietly. All eyes turned to the purple gentleman in the green suit. He crossed his arms. "I'm fine, okay," he said crossly. "Let's get on with the meeting." 131120 ... e_o_i Kavanagh's purple skin was like an elephant in the room. A purple elephant. Mercy Plunkett knew, they all knew, that the Avenging Angel of Literalism had punished Kavanagh for his foolish early exposure to UV rays. When he was fourteen years old, he didn't know that "ultraviolet" was beyond the spectrum of visible light. He thought that it meant a really, really cool shade of purple. On the hottest day of 1998, he and a few of his friends went to the beach. They attracted a few stares when they set up the Ultraviolet Filter. Kavanagh and his friend Borky unrolled what looked like a large violet volleyball net and set it up directly above him. Borky had taken the precaution of adding to it a sheet woven out of rose-coloured lenses. As fourteen-year-old Kavanagh relaxed on a mud-stained towel in his fluorescent bermuda shorts, looking through the ultraviolet and hopefulness filters he was astonished to see a plethora of cool friends frolicking in the clouds. Borky waved to him, but Kavanagh's gaze was transfixed straight up. In his visions he saw a brown-haired, wet, bikini-clad girl of eighteen to twenty - she was waving at him and talking in a silky voice about anthropocentrism and the mixed legacy of Aristotelian thought - and he wished she would go away because he didn't want to get a boner from apparently staring at clouds because if Borky and Paul (whom we haven't mentioned yet) noticed, they would laugh at him, even though neither of them were likely to stare deliberately at his penis. Borky would sometimes disorient him by staring at the third toe of his right foot, but this only worked in the summer when Kavanagh wore sandals. Anyway, the cloud vision promptly scattered, only for its white swirls to reassemble in a vision of insufficient horror. "You're only an old woman," a concerned Paul heard Kavanagh say to the clouds, "and no matter what horror movies say, I don't find old people or orphans very scary." This was the Avenging Angel of Literalism. I can't describe her because of the current publication ban (see Statute x.y of The Charter of Arbitrary Values), but I will say she had a chip on her shoulder and it was slightly stale. That's all you need to know. No one knows what she said to him - Kavanagh himself claims not to remember - but with an anticlimactic sound effect, his skin colour changed from peach-tan to a deep and dazzling purple. 131201 ... e_o_i They visited him in his dreams - the sexy philosopher and the Avenging Angel of Literalism - but they never pierced the veil of his waking mind. Mercy Plunkett dreamed of the day she could ditch her job and take a cruise in Antarctica. She was waiting for global warming to do its dirty work. 131216 ... unhinged sadhana_of_mahamudra although i live in the slime and the muck of the dark age still i aspire to see your face although i stumble through the thick black fog of materialism still i aspire to see your face dorje_trolo 131217 ... e_o_i Robokoff coughed, returning Plunkett and Kavanagh's thoughts to the matter at hand. The matter was dark matter, bunched up in Robokoff's heavy hands that still looked as if they were strangling a tree. "Clearly," said Robokoff, "your analysis is flawed. I believe sales of dark have tanked over the last two months at least. You see, the shadow of your left sleeve is obscuring the screen. It is not as dark as it looks." Mercy, startled, took a jump to the right. Immediately the screen behind her began glowing brighter and brighter. The men shielded their eyes. Even the dark matter in Robokoff's hands solidified into a Game of Thrones episode and slipped away from this story. (In 2017, it tried to become a more current reference, but the Charter of Arbitrary Values disallowed time travel.) When the amount of light increases, of course, colour contrast becomes more apparent. Kavanagh's purpleness grew purpler and purpler, until the screen exploded with a surprisingly soft "Pff!" and Ultraviolet appeared. She was not an action heroine played by Milla Jovovich, nor was she an artist who'd worked with Andy Warhol in times past. No, she was Kavanagh's original sexy philosopher, and a cartoon. Kavanagh was surprised he hadn't realized this years ago: her skin looked a little too shiny, her breasts more than a little too large - and her outfit clung perilously to the latter regions. She was not purple. Her clothing, what there was of it, blazed silver; her hair shone black with blue streaks; and her skin glowed golden-brown. "In case the proceeding narration did not fix it in your mind, I am Ultraviolet," she proclaimed. "My grandmother, the Avenging Angel of Literalism, requires me to initiate an Austerity Program. In this very room." Robokoff grinned, Kavanagh cowered, and Mercy Plunkett sighed. It was going to be another of THESE meetings. 140516 ... dafremen . 140525 ... u24 sales of dark have been increasing rapidly this year. 200909 ... u24 (brought here by three_words: dark_market_analysis astrological colours) 200909 what's it to you? who go blather from