[OOC: Profile]
Character Name: Delirium (Del)
Character Series: Sandman, somewhat connected to the DC Comics universe.
Age: Almost as old as the universe, but the youngest of the seven Endless. Delirium’s appearance is more variable than any other Endless, but she tends to look anywhere from ten to fifteen. (Though that may just depend on the artist.)
Background: Delirium and the rest of the Endless are as old as existence itself, if not older. The Endless are not really people, or gods, or even avatars. They are what they are. Delirium is insanity-and happiness, but more on that in a bit. All gods and avatars are mere aspects of each Endless, as imagined by mortals. She is every instance of madness, and all madmen belong to her.
In the beginning, she was Delight. Delight was a happy, friendly child. In the series Delight is only shown once, at a meeting of all the great cosmic entities billions of years ago. In this meeting our Sun (Sol) appears to be a child, and mentions that none of his planets have life yet. She was there with her siblings-Desire, Destruction, Despair, and Dream. Death was not welcomed at the meeting and left, and Destiny didn’t attend. Delight thought the whole thing was boring, so she had nothing to do with the meeting itself, but she met Dream’s first love Killalla of the Glow. Delight’s part is short, but she appears to act essentially normal for a young child, if exceptionally imaginative and cheery.
No one really but Del herself knows what really made her switch from Delight to Delirium. Even Destiny, whose book contains everything that has been and will be in all of Creation, doesn’t know what happened. And most of the time, Delirium doesn’t seem to know either. Most of the time she seems to have little to no recollection of her previous life, and at one time the narration says that even she didn’t know what was going on until it was too late. She only mentions knowing it in a brief instant when she regains sanity and acts as Delight.
Most of Del’s siblings seem to care for her. They typically show concern whenever she has a problem and try to keep her out of trouble, though they also sometimes see her as an annoyance. Her favorite sibling is Destruction, and she was crushed when he left the family and abandoned his duties. Destruction helped her the most when she was changing into Delirium. Without him there she seems more prone to tantrums and depression.
In the latter part of the series, Delirium decides that she wants to go search for Destruction. She’s afraid that he might be hurt somewhere and unable to call his family for help, but most of all she clings to the hope that if he comes back the family will be complete and happy again. She goes to Desire and Despair to ask for their help, but both decline. Dream accepts, but initially he only sees it as a wild goose chase, a diversion from his recent breakup. Delirium and Dream search for old contacts of Destruction. Most are dead by the time they get there, and it seems that their search is prompting things to go wrong. People start dying around them, or disappear to never be seen again. Dream insists that their search is doing more harm than good, so he returns to his realm. Delirium is infuriated, because Dream promised to help her and is now giving up. She returns to her own realm and locks it from the rest of her family.
Thankfully Death notices that Delirium has shut herself off. Death confronts Dream and convinces him to go talk to Delirium. He has to go through an indirect route to her realm, but manages to reach the sundial in the center. Delirium finally talks to him, and Dream agrees to continue the search. This time they start with their brother Destiny. But Destiny insists they stop the search, although he knows they won’t. When Dream asks him for any information at all, Destiny tells Dream that his last lover had never loved him at all, and truly never would. Dream becomes completely distraught. Seeing her brother in that state seems to force Delirium to become sober for a moment. She chides Destiny, telling him that he doesn’t really know everything. Then she convinces Dream to get up and leave.
From there they go to a small Greek island where Dream’s son Orpheus lives-if you could call it that. Orpheus is an immortal severed head. Centuries ago Dream had sworn never to speak to Orpheus again, but they need an oracle to find Destruction. Delirium waits outside while Dream negotiates; Orpheus agrees to help if Dream comes back to kill him afterward.
And they do find Destruction. He’s living on a small island not far from Orpheus’, his only companion a dog named Barnabas. Destruction happily welcomes Dream and Delirium into his home. They both try to convince him to go back to his realm and his duties, and Del (in her round-about way) explains all the trouble they went through to find them. Destruction has no hard feelings against them, but he still refuses to go back to the family. They all talk for a while, and Delirium seems to understand why he can’t stay. People will continue to hurt each other even though Destruction isn’t there to encourage it, and he actually no longer wants to encourage it. Destruction doesn’t want to be responsible for humanity (or any beings) destroying itself. So he tells Barnabas to stick with Delirium as a sort of guard dog/ sitter, and leaves Earth.
Afterwards, Dream and Delirium return to Orpheus’ island. Delirium tells him goodbye before Dream kills his son. Then they both return to their own realms.
Orpheus’ murder leaves Dream open to attack by ancient forces known as The Kindly Ones, vengeful spirits summoned by a woman who believes Dream has killed her son Daniel. Delirium, meanwhile, has lost Barnabus. She tries to get Dream to come with her to find him, so her brother won’t have to go to war with the Kindly Ones. But he declines, and she wanders around for a time looking for Barnabus on her own. She meets with Nuala the elf, a former servant of Dream, and tells her that Dream is in danger. Nuala convinces Dream to leave his realm for a short time, ultimately allowing the Kindly Ones to wreak havoc on it. Dream is killed, and the child Daniel is transformed into the new Dream. Meanwhile Delirium finally finds Barnabus in the real world. Delirium later attends Dream’s wake and funeral with her siblings.
In the book Endless Nights, Delirium’s short story has her in some kind of mental breakdown. She has turned in on herself to the point that even her siblings cannot bring her back. Barnabas, the new Dream, and Dream’s raven Matthew have to gather some of Delirium’s own people-in short, madmen-to bring her back to herself. They are eventually successful, though they can only find five people on such short notice. In Destruction’s short story, Destruction is watching over Delirium. Delirium says that she had been sick and the rest of the family asked him to watch over her for a while. It isn’t explained why she had a breakdown like that, but it is inferred that she was heartbroken over someone. She proposes that the fact that she and Destruction are there has caused a rock from the future (a future, or an alternate Earth) to appear in an abandoned peninsula. This is an idea she’s brought up before: essentially, the very presence of an Endless influences the world around it. A day later she and Destruction leave the place, and an explosion goes off which erases all traces of the strange rock and the peninsula.
Personality: Delirium is essentially a child. She is an insane, broken child with godlike powers, but still basically a child. When she doesn’t get her way, like when Dream initially decides to end their search, she throws a tantrum and closes her realm like a kid locking the door to her room. When people make her angry or get in her way, she often drives them mad without a second thought. She also has a child’s curiosity and fascination with the world, despite being older than time. She’s playful and friendly as long as she’s having fun, easily bored, and can snap from throwing tantrums to giggling and laughing in an instant. There is always a reason, but more often than not it is a child’s reason. She may become angry because someone won’t let her go somewhere, or be depressed because someone gave her a disapproving look.
Del seems to have a very tentative grasp of right and wrong. She generally seems to want people to be happy, but she doesn’t mourn when mortals die or are injured unless she really liked them. Also, she doesn’t always seem fully aware of the consequences of her actions. In one part she mentions that a girl was nice to her, so she made it so the girl would never be sad again. In another example, the human escorting Dream and Delirium around the real world in their search for Destruction was killed. Delirium’s first thought is “I get to drive!” Also she has no problem with viciously hurting people for very minor offenses, such as driving a police officer insane because he pulled her over for reckless driving.
Most of the time, Delirium’s trains of thought are difficult if not impossible to follow. As she embodies insanity, she often acts insane. She may change topics multiple times in a few minutes, throwing in seemingly unconnected ideas, and then change back to the original topic without warning. There IS often some logic in it, it’s just disjointed and confusing to anyone not of her realm. Still, she has a tendency to forget things and seems to find basic logic nearly impossible to understand. When she loses something, she looks everywhere that sounds interesting, not the place she might have last seen it.
Delirium seems to have some amount of clairvoyance: it is mentioned that she can travel paths outside of Destiny’s book and knows things even he doesn’t. Sometimes she says things that don’t seem to mean anything until much later: once she suggests to a man that he tip a particular dancer more, and that dancer is the only person who escapes from the building as it burns down. It is mentioned that she may know more than any of her siblings (excluding, possibly, Death) about the way the universe works. When Destruction leaves the second time, he says that he is trying to learn everything that there is. Death told him once that it was possible, and that everyone inherently knows everything, but they force themselves to forget in order to make life bearable. Del says this is (mostly) true, but her siblings seem to ignore her.
On a very, very rare occasion, Delirium can still become Delight. It only happened once in the series: when Destiny caused Dream to go into a breakdown. In this brief time she was Delight, she was incredibly angry with her eldest brother, but managed to control her rage. She seemed much more mature and collected. Del said that since Dream was weak, one of them had to stay together. However, staying in this state for very long is incredibly painful.
Character Series: Sandman, somewhat connected to the DC Comics universe.
Age: Almost as old as the universe, but the youngest of the seven Endless. Delirium’s appearance is more variable than any other Endless, but she tends to look anywhere from ten to fifteen. (Though that may just depend on the artist.)
Background: Delirium and the rest of the Endless are as old as existence itself, if not older. The Endless are not really people, or gods, or even avatars. They are what they are. Delirium is insanity-and happiness, but more on that in a bit. All gods and avatars are mere aspects of each Endless, as imagined by mortals. She is every instance of madness, and all madmen belong to her.
In the beginning, she was Delight. Delight was a happy, friendly child. In the series Delight is only shown once, at a meeting of all the great cosmic entities billions of years ago. In this meeting our Sun (Sol) appears to be a child, and mentions that none of his planets have life yet. She was there with her siblings-Desire, Destruction, Despair, and Dream. Death was not welcomed at the meeting and left, and Destiny didn’t attend. Delight thought the whole thing was boring, so she had nothing to do with the meeting itself, but she met Dream’s first love Killalla of the Glow. Delight’s part is short, but she appears to act essentially normal for a young child, if exceptionally imaginative and cheery.
No one really but Del herself knows what really made her switch from Delight to Delirium. Even Destiny, whose book contains everything that has been and will be in all of Creation, doesn’t know what happened. And most of the time, Delirium doesn’t seem to know either. Most of the time she seems to have little to no recollection of her previous life, and at one time the narration says that even she didn’t know what was going on until it was too late. She only mentions knowing it in a brief instant when she regains sanity and acts as Delight.
Most of Del’s siblings seem to care for her. They typically show concern whenever she has a problem and try to keep her out of trouble, though they also sometimes see her as an annoyance. Her favorite sibling is Destruction, and she was crushed when he left the family and abandoned his duties. Destruction helped her the most when she was changing into Delirium. Without him there she seems more prone to tantrums and depression.
In the latter part of the series, Delirium decides that she wants to go search for Destruction. She’s afraid that he might be hurt somewhere and unable to call his family for help, but most of all she clings to the hope that if he comes back the family will be complete and happy again. She goes to Desire and Despair to ask for their help, but both decline. Dream accepts, but initially he only sees it as a wild goose chase, a diversion from his recent breakup. Delirium and Dream search for old contacts of Destruction. Most are dead by the time they get there, and it seems that their search is prompting things to go wrong. People start dying around them, or disappear to never be seen again. Dream insists that their search is doing more harm than good, so he returns to his realm. Delirium is infuriated, because Dream promised to help her and is now giving up. She returns to her own realm and locks it from the rest of her family.
Thankfully Death notices that Delirium has shut herself off. Death confronts Dream and convinces him to go talk to Delirium. He has to go through an indirect route to her realm, but manages to reach the sundial in the center. Delirium finally talks to him, and Dream agrees to continue the search. This time they start with their brother Destiny. But Destiny insists they stop the search, although he knows they won’t. When Dream asks him for any information at all, Destiny tells Dream that his last lover had never loved him at all, and truly never would. Dream becomes completely distraught. Seeing her brother in that state seems to force Delirium to become sober for a moment. She chides Destiny, telling him that he doesn’t really know everything. Then she convinces Dream to get up and leave.
From there they go to a small Greek island where Dream’s son Orpheus lives-if you could call it that. Orpheus is an immortal severed head. Centuries ago Dream had sworn never to speak to Orpheus again, but they need an oracle to find Destruction. Delirium waits outside while Dream negotiates; Orpheus agrees to help if Dream comes back to kill him afterward.
And they do find Destruction. He’s living on a small island not far from Orpheus’, his only companion a dog named Barnabas. Destruction happily welcomes Dream and Delirium into his home. They both try to convince him to go back to his realm and his duties, and Del (in her round-about way) explains all the trouble they went through to find them. Destruction has no hard feelings against them, but he still refuses to go back to the family. They all talk for a while, and Delirium seems to understand why he can’t stay. People will continue to hurt each other even though Destruction isn’t there to encourage it, and he actually no longer wants to encourage it. Destruction doesn’t want to be responsible for humanity (or any beings) destroying itself. So he tells Barnabas to stick with Delirium as a sort of guard dog/ sitter, and leaves Earth.
Afterwards, Dream and Delirium return to Orpheus’ island. Delirium tells him goodbye before Dream kills his son. Then they both return to their own realms.
Orpheus’ murder leaves Dream open to attack by ancient forces known as The Kindly Ones, vengeful spirits summoned by a woman who believes Dream has killed her son Daniel. Delirium, meanwhile, has lost Barnabus. She tries to get Dream to come with her to find him, so her brother won’t have to go to war with the Kindly Ones. But he declines, and she wanders around for a time looking for Barnabus on her own. She meets with Nuala the elf, a former servant of Dream, and tells her that Dream is in danger. Nuala convinces Dream to leave his realm for a short time, ultimately allowing the Kindly Ones to wreak havoc on it. Dream is killed, and the child Daniel is transformed into the new Dream. Meanwhile Delirium finally finds Barnabus in the real world. Delirium later attends Dream’s wake and funeral with her siblings.
In the book Endless Nights, Delirium’s short story has her in some kind of mental breakdown. She has turned in on herself to the point that even her siblings cannot bring her back. Barnabas, the new Dream, and Dream’s raven Matthew have to gather some of Delirium’s own people-in short, madmen-to bring her back to herself. They are eventually successful, though they can only find five people on such short notice. In Destruction’s short story, Destruction is watching over Delirium. Delirium says that she had been sick and the rest of the family asked him to watch over her for a while. It isn’t explained why she had a breakdown like that, but it is inferred that she was heartbroken over someone. She proposes that the fact that she and Destruction are there has caused a rock from the future (a future, or an alternate Earth) to appear in an abandoned peninsula. This is an idea she’s brought up before: essentially, the very presence of an Endless influences the world around it. A day later she and Destruction leave the place, and an explosion goes off which erases all traces of the strange rock and the peninsula.
Personality: Delirium is essentially a child. She is an insane, broken child with godlike powers, but still basically a child. When she doesn’t get her way, like when Dream initially decides to end their search, she throws a tantrum and closes her realm like a kid locking the door to her room. When people make her angry or get in her way, she often drives them mad without a second thought. She also has a child’s curiosity and fascination with the world, despite being older than time. She’s playful and friendly as long as she’s having fun, easily bored, and can snap from throwing tantrums to giggling and laughing in an instant. There is always a reason, but more often than not it is a child’s reason. She may become angry because someone won’t let her go somewhere, or be depressed because someone gave her a disapproving look.
Del seems to have a very tentative grasp of right and wrong. She generally seems to want people to be happy, but she doesn’t mourn when mortals die or are injured unless she really liked them. Also, she doesn’t always seem fully aware of the consequences of her actions. In one part she mentions that a girl was nice to her, so she made it so the girl would never be sad again. In another example, the human escorting Dream and Delirium around the real world in their search for Destruction was killed. Delirium’s first thought is “I get to drive!” Also she has no problem with viciously hurting people for very minor offenses, such as driving a police officer insane because he pulled her over for reckless driving.
Most of the time, Delirium’s trains of thought are difficult if not impossible to follow. As she embodies insanity, she often acts insane. She may change topics multiple times in a few minutes, throwing in seemingly unconnected ideas, and then change back to the original topic without warning. There IS often some logic in it, it’s just disjointed and confusing to anyone not of her realm. Still, she has a tendency to forget things and seems to find basic logic nearly impossible to understand. When she loses something, she looks everywhere that sounds interesting, not the place she might have last seen it.
Delirium seems to have some amount of clairvoyance: it is mentioned that she can travel paths outside of Destiny’s book and knows things even he doesn’t. Sometimes she says things that don’t seem to mean anything until much later: once she suggests to a man that he tip a particular dancer more, and that dancer is the only person who escapes from the building as it burns down. It is mentioned that she may know more than any of her siblings (excluding, possibly, Death) about the way the universe works. When Destruction leaves the second time, he says that he is trying to learn everything that there is. Death told him once that it was possible, and that everyone inherently knows everything, but they force themselves to forget in order to make life bearable. Del says this is (mostly) true, but her siblings seem to ignore her.
On a very, very rare occasion, Delirium can still become Delight. It only happened once in the series: when Destiny caused Dream to go into a breakdown. In this brief time she was Delight, she was incredibly angry with her eldest brother, but managed to control her rage. She seemed much more mature and collected. Del said that since Dream was weak, one of them had to stay together. However, staying in this state for very long is incredibly painful.