app;
PLAYER
NAME: Mici
JOURNAL: vpshinra
IM: ShinRa Brat
E-MAIL: presidentshinra[at]gmail[dot]com
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Desire
FANDOM: The Sandman
CHRONOLOGY: Current House of Mystery (issue 42); Hellblazer issue 284. I realize fully that Desire is not in House of Mystery or Hellblazer directly (or even by mention): by this chronology I mean as up to date in the Vertigo/DCU as possible, these two being the only titles Vertigo is releasing currently that takes place in the "DCU".
BACKGROUND:
In order to tell this story right, one has to go back to the beginning of the Universe. There was nothing, and then there was Destiny: but because all things that begin must end, there was Death. To keep Death from being meaningless, there was Dream, and then because Dreams are created they must be destroyed, which gave birth to Destruction, which causes men to Desire, who is twin to Despair, and this far back, there was sweet Delight at the end. To be accurate, this is before any God; the Endless themselves predate Creation (in fact, in Destiny's book, the beginning of Creation takes place about a third of the way into the Book). So they were alone for a very long time.
So for the purposes of this app, I will focus on the chronology that directly applies to Desire.
Once upon a time, Desire was closest to it's older brother Dream; in truth, it loved Dream beyond any of it's other siblings. All this, however, came to an end with a girl; Dream was to marry Killalla of the Glow. At a meeting of the Endless and the others of the Glow, Killalla was introduced to Desire and spent some time alone with the Endless. Mistake? Maybe. Killalla abandons Dream that very night, having fallen in love with the Star of her own planet, once she realizes exactly who and what he is. Dream blames Desire, who only replies with, Doesn't he have a sense of humor?
This begins the destruction of their relationship.
Over the millenia, Dream continues to fall in love, and each relationship ends badly: while Desire is never directly blamed for his bad streak, Desire also will not deny having a hand in Dream's bad luck. However, in the 1800's, Despair, Desire and Delirium make a bet with Dream over which one of them can win Joshua Abraham Norton - will he pursue his despair, desires, deliriums or his dreams? Dream wins the bet, and in a crucial moment with Desire, Desire swears that it will bring the Kindly Ones on Dream's head - that it will make Dream spill family blood.
So begins the weaving of a plot:
It begins with Dream's imprisonment in the waking world - Desire had nothing to do with this (shock!), but this causes the sleep of one Unity Kinkaid on whom Desire fathers a child. From their union is born a girl who is sent to America and is adopted, and she in turn has two children: Rose and Jed Walker, the grandchildren of Unity Kinkaid and Desire.
In truth Rose Walker is the Vortex; a person born once an era who becomes the Center of the Dreaming. They have the ability, in their dreams, to destroy the entirety of the Dreaming which would cause the entirety of sentience (for they all live part of their lives in the Dreaming) be destroyed, too. It's happened before. Dream has permission to only kill one person - and that person is the Vortex. But before he can kill her (thus unknowingly spilling Family blood and bringing down the Kindly Ones on him) Unity Kinkaid appears and reveals that she was meant to be the Vortex, if only Dream hadn't been imprisoned on Earth, and demands that Rose gives Unity her heart, which would take away what makes her the Vortex. Unity dies, and Rose lives on.
Dream goes to Desire to confront it on the matter, and tells Desire to butt out, and explains that the Endless are not there to control people, but the other way around. Desire doesn't get it, and when Dream leaves, it muses to itself how it must have royally gotten under Dream's skin.
The next time we see Desire it's basically making an ass out of Dream at a family dinner by pointing out that hey, you sent your own girlfriend to hell because she dumped your sorry self. This prompts Dream to go and fetch Nada out of hell, which leads to a whole other series of events that have nothing to do with Desire.
As the series progresses, it becomes clear that Desire's hand colors the entire saga, even when it claims to not have anything to do with the events. Delirium becomes obsessed with finding Destruction, and when Dream confronts Desire about it, Desire says it was nothing that it did to create this obsession. However, at the end of Brief Lives, when Dream finally does spill Family blood by killing his son, Desire reveals that it is scared about how this event will turn out.
During the events of Dreams Death - which contrary to how it sounds, takes fucking forever - Desire and Rose Walker meet. Rose seduces a gay guy who then kills himself, and she's musing on how she doesn't feel anything about it, when Desire arrives and they have a little talk. Desire claims it preferred her when she was stoic and felt nothing, but leaves Rose it's heart-shaped lighter - that is to say, her heart, after having lost her own to Unity Kinkaid.
Desire appears one last time in the Wake, to speak at Dream's funeral, where it says a few words but they are, essentially, just a show. It is clear that Desire is only there to see it's plan out to the end.
During the events of the sequel/spinoff series The Dreaming Desire's only actions are implied. It is heavily inferred (Caitlin R. Kiernan, why?) that Desire is the one who told Echo that she was intended to be the "eighth" Endless, Discord. At the end of the series Daniel basically tells Desire off - but that's about all that happens.
PERSONALITY:
Desire is many things: Desire is petty, and cruel, and kind, and malicious all at once. Neither a man or a woman, Desire is whatever you wish it to be - or so you may think. Everything about Desire is sharp; its whims, its beauty, its function. So to properly describe Desire, one must begin like this: Desire is everything that everyone and everything has ever wanted. It does not rule desire - it is the the Endless who is Desire.
Desire is petty. It will often use words to harm someone not because it was hurt, but simply because it can. It will manipulate people for no other reason than that it is bored. But there are kind parts to Desire to: an unwavering loyalty to its twin, Despair, for instance, or its unpredictable kindness when it does want to be kind, which brings up another aspect of Desire: want. Desire does what it wants, when it wants, and how it wants, and expects whatever is in its way to bend over. This is often helped by the fact that Desire controls desire, in a way. When Desire doesn't get its way its thrown tantrums, and often it vows revenge.
Desire's kindness is rare and fleeting and is usually directed at those who know how to control desire upon others: the two examples are the woman from the tale, "What I've Tasted of Desire" and Tiffany, the stripper in Brief Lives. But it knows, too, that those women are not women who control desires and succeed. They control desires in others and still lose. This aspect, this kindness, is only momentary, and very rarely goes beyond a moment of advice and a kind word.
Desire is cruel - not because it relishes in being cruel, but because desire is a cruel thing. It doesn't always care about the consequences, and often what it does is considered childish (like ruining its brother's relationship and then calling it a joke). However, being an Endless this doesn't mean that some of it's whims and desires don't last. Desire is fully capable of making a long-term plan and seeing that plan out to the end. Not caring about consequences, after all, is very different from not understanding what they will be.
But all that said, Desire is not evil. Desire is simply what it is. It's easily inflamed, fickle, almost childlike, because that is what people have made it (something it will never admit to). Desire is critical and takes a special delight in finding the weak points of people and exploiting them - because after all, aren't people weakest when they want something? But despite being this way, Desire is very rarely wrong. While it will not pull punches, especially when someone tries to be stoic or above their own emotions, it will very rarely lie to elicit a reaction out of someone. After all, the most fun is that what it's saying is true, even if someone is in denial.
Desire, is, after all, what everyone wants. To the exclusion of everything else. It will not ever let anyone forget this: because getting what one desires is very different from desiring in the first place. It's very good at using and manipulating people, and will lead people on - for a time, until it is sufficiently bored. There is a reason that its twin is Despair.
CLASS: While I resist calling Desire a villain, because that has a far deeper implication, I would say it's much more likely to be considered a villain by everyone than anything else.
SUPERHERO NAME: N/A
ALTER EGO: Desire of the Endless
POWER: Polylocation, control over desire, omniscience particularly over what someone desires, immortality
COMMUNITY POST SAMPLE: There are several questions that should be taken into account.
Let us begin with this one. Did you really think that I have not been here? That you have been immune to what I am, or perhaps to all of us? Explanations are nothing more than excuses; and no one knows this more than me. I have no interest in either, but that should come as no surprise.
Hello, City. Say you missed me.
Who will be the first, then, to try and make me smile?
THIRD PERSON: The Threshold is both the most public and most private of places, and Desire is it's Lord and Lady both.
And at any given moment, Desire is making its home in the heart, rich and decadent and lush, all the pleasures of the universe and the gateway to all the pain, but the Lord and Lady of its own domain is currently displeased, its long white fingers flicking at its cigarette, sending ash spiraling down the chambers of the organ that beats, beats, beats, carrying not blood but the will of Desire through palace of flesh.
Desire itself knows exactly why it is displeased; someone thinks to deny it what it wants. What it wants is irrelevant; the heart of a star, handed to the Lord and Lady on a platter. The destruction (and isn't that the irony, it thinks, that it is doing the job of its older prodigal brother, and that gives it a start to its heart, but it lasts only a moment and Desire, who lives in the moment, forgets about it the instant after it happens) of an entire solar system all for Desire's delight (and there is another irony, because Delight is dead). But someone, who is irrelevant, if they are not of the Family then Desire is hard pressed to care about their names, especially in the privacy of it's own hall, wishes to stop this.
But Desire is thinking. Desire is thinking of ways, of people, of hearts it can tug to make what it wants happen. Of desires it can manipulate into setting off a chain of events to cause the result that it seeks. Because there is nothing more important, in the mind of the Fifth of the Endless, than that. All the other Endless are what they are, and Desire knows it's place, above all of them as it is equal. Above Gods, because wasn't Desire there when God created the Universe, already bored, already waiting, already knowing what was to be?
Its tawny eyes finally alight, and to see the smile on its face would be to despair the desire and eventually fall into delirium from the beauty. Desire knows what it will do, and without wasting time, without hesitating to pause on the consequences of destroying an entire solar system, of destroying the sweet face of all those inhabitants who adore and worship at its feet because in their eyes there is nothing more powerful. This is true Desire's eyes, too, for the Lord and Lady knows that the only power that can drive anyone to truly understand the universe, the Endless, and the face of whatever transient and infintely doubtable god that it worships is housed in the Threshold, and is smoking its finest cigarettes because it can, and it does not care.
Cigarette smoke is whipped when the chamber of the heart pumps, just a little faster. Someone might notice that the spark in Desire's eye is a little sharper, its step a little quicker, its loveliness just a touch fiercer. But there is no one in the Threshold to see Desire's machinations, or the labyrinthine corridors of the Endless' heart, and Desire likes it that way.
NAME: Mici
JOURNAL: vpshinra
IM: ShinRa Brat
E-MAIL: presidentshinra[at]gmail[dot]com
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Desire
FANDOM: The Sandman
CHRONOLOGY: Current House of Mystery (issue 42); Hellblazer issue 284. I realize fully that Desire is not in House of Mystery or Hellblazer directly (or even by mention): by this chronology I mean as up to date in the Vertigo/DCU as possible, these two being the only titles Vertigo is releasing currently that takes place in the "DCU".
BACKGROUND:
In order to tell this story right, one has to go back to the beginning of the Universe. There was nothing, and then there was Destiny: but because all things that begin must end, there was Death. To keep Death from being meaningless, there was Dream, and then because Dreams are created they must be destroyed, which gave birth to Destruction, which causes men to Desire, who is twin to Despair, and this far back, there was sweet Delight at the end. To be accurate, this is before any God; the Endless themselves predate Creation (in fact, in Destiny's book, the beginning of Creation takes place about a third of the way into the Book). So they were alone for a very long time.
So for the purposes of this app, I will focus on the chronology that directly applies to Desire.
Once upon a time, Desire was closest to it's older brother Dream; in truth, it loved Dream beyond any of it's other siblings. All this, however, came to an end with a girl; Dream was to marry Killalla of the Glow. At a meeting of the Endless and the others of the Glow, Killalla was introduced to Desire and spent some time alone with the Endless. Mistake? Maybe. Killalla abandons Dream that very night, having fallen in love with the Star of her own planet, once she realizes exactly who and what he is. Dream blames Desire, who only replies with, Doesn't he have a sense of humor?
This begins the destruction of their relationship.
Over the millenia, Dream continues to fall in love, and each relationship ends badly: while Desire is never directly blamed for his bad streak, Desire also will not deny having a hand in Dream's bad luck. However, in the 1800's, Despair, Desire and Delirium make a bet with Dream over which one of them can win Joshua Abraham Norton - will he pursue his despair, desires, deliriums or his dreams? Dream wins the bet, and in a crucial moment with Desire, Desire swears that it will bring the Kindly Ones on Dream's head - that it will make Dream spill family blood.
So begins the weaving of a plot:
It begins with Dream's imprisonment in the waking world - Desire had nothing to do with this (shock!), but this causes the sleep of one Unity Kinkaid on whom Desire fathers a child. From their union is born a girl who is sent to America and is adopted, and she in turn has two children: Rose and Jed Walker, the grandchildren of Unity Kinkaid and Desire.
In truth Rose Walker is the Vortex; a person born once an era who becomes the Center of the Dreaming. They have the ability, in their dreams, to destroy the entirety of the Dreaming which would cause the entirety of sentience (for they all live part of their lives in the Dreaming) be destroyed, too. It's happened before. Dream has permission to only kill one person - and that person is the Vortex. But before he can kill her (thus unknowingly spilling Family blood and bringing down the Kindly Ones on him) Unity Kinkaid appears and reveals that she was meant to be the Vortex, if only Dream hadn't been imprisoned on Earth, and demands that Rose gives Unity her heart, which would take away what makes her the Vortex. Unity dies, and Rose lives on.
Dream goes to Desire to confront it on the matter, and tells Desire to butt out, and explains that the Endless are not there to control people, but the other way around. Desire doesn't get it, and when Dream leaves, it muses to itself how it must have royally gotten under Dream's skin.
The next time we see Desire it's basically making an ass out of Dream at a family dinner by pointing out that hey, you sent your own girlfriend to hell because she dumped your sorry self. This prompts Dream to go and fetch Nada out of hell, which leads to a whole other series of events that have nothing to do with Desire.
As the series progresses, it becomes clear that Desire's hand colors the entire saga, even when it claims to not have anything to do with the events. Delirium becomes obsessed with finding Destruction, and when Dream confronts Desire about it, Desire says it was nothing that it did to create this obsession. However, at the end of Brief Lives, when Dream finally does spill Family blood by killing his son, Desire reveals that it is scared about how this event will turn out.
During the events of Dreams Death - which contrary to how it sounds, takes fucking forever - Desire and Rose Walker meet. Rose seduces a gay guy who then kills himself, and she's musing on how she doesn't feel anything about it, when Desire arrives and they have a little talk. Desire claims it preferred her when she was stoic and felt nothing, but leaves Rose it's heart-shaped lighter - that is to say, her heart, after having lost her own to Unity Kinkaid.
Desire appears one last time in the Wake, to speak at Dream's funeral, where it says a few words but they are, essentially, just a show. It is clear that Desire is only there to see it's plan out to the end.
During the events of the sequel/spinoff series The Dreaming Desire's only actions are implied. It is heavily inferred (Caitlin R. Kiernan, why?) that Desire is the one who told Echo that she was intended to be the "eighth" Endless, Discord. At the end of the series Daniel basically tells Desire off - but that's about all that happens.
PERSONALITY:
Desire is many things: Desire is petty, and cruel, and kind, and malicious all at once. Neither a man or a woman, Desire is whatever you wish it to be - or so you may think. Everything about Desire is sharp; its whims, its beauty, its function. So to properly describe Desire, one must begin like this: Desire is everything that everyone and everything has ever wanted. It does not rule desire - it is the the Endless who is Desire.
Desire is petty. It will often use words to harm someone not because it was hurt, but simply because it can. It will manipulate people for no other reason than that it is bored. But there are kind parts to Desire to: an unwavering loyalty to its twin, Despair, for instance, or its unpredictable kindness when it does want to be kind, which brings up another aspect of Desire: want. Desire does what it wants, when it wants, and how it wants, and expects whatever is in its way to bend over. This is often helped by the fact that Desire controls desire, in a way. When Desire doesn't get its way its thrown tantrums, and often it vows revenge.
Desire's kindness is rare and fleeting and is usually directed at those who know how to control desire upon others: the two examples are the woman from the tale, "What I've Tasted of Desire" and Tiffany, the stripper in Brief Lives. But it knows, too, that those women are not women who control desires and succeed. They control desires in others and still lose. This aspect, this kindness, is only momentary, and very rarely goes beyond a moment of advice and a kind word.
Desire is cruel - not because it relishes in being cruel, but because desire is a cruel thing. It doesn't always care about the consequences, and often what it does is considered childish (like ruining its brother's relationship and then calling it a joke). However, being an Endless this doesn't mean that some of it's whims and desires don't last. Desire is fully capable of making a long-term plan and seeing that plan out to the end. Not caring about consequences, after all, is very different from not understanding what they will be.
But all that said, Desire is not evil. Desire is simply what it is. It's easily inflamed, fickle, almost childlike, because that is what people have made it (something it will never admit to). Desire is critical and takes a special delight in finding the weak points of people and exploiting them - because after all, aren't people weakest when they want something? But despite being this way, Desire is very rarely wrong. While it will not pull punches, especially when someone tries to be stoic or above their own emotions, it will very rarely lie to elicit a reaction out of someone. After all, the most fun is that what it's saying is true, even if someone is in denial.
Desire, is, after all, what everyone wants. To the exclusion of everything else. It will not ever let anyone forget this: because getting what one desires is very different from desiring in the first place. It's very good at using and manipulating people, and will lead people on - for a time, until it is sufficiently bored. There is a reason that its twin is Despair.
CLASS: While I resist calling Desire a villain, because that has a far deeper implication, I would say it's much more likely to be considered a villain by everyone than anything else.
SUPERHERO NAME: N/A
ALTER EGO: Desire of the Endless
POWER: Polylocation, control over desire, omniscience particularly over what someone desires, immortality
COMMUNITY POST SAMPLE: There are several questions that should be taken into account.
Let us begin with this one. Did you really think that I have not been here? That you have been immune to what I am, or perhaps to all of us? Explanations are nothing more than excuses; and no one knows this more than me. I have no interest in either, but that should come as no surprise.
Hello, City. Say you missed me.
Who will be the first, then, to try and make me smile?
THIRD PERSON: The Threshold is both the most public and most private of places, and Desire is it's Lord and Lady both.
And at any given moment, Desire is making its home in the heart, rich and decadent and lush, all the pleasures of the universe and the gateway to all the pain, but the Lord and Lady of its own domain is currently displeased, its long white fingers flicking at its cigarette, sending ash spiraling down the chambers of the organ that beats, beats, beats, carrying not blood but the will of Desire through palace of flesh.
Desire itself knows exactly why it is displeased; someone thinks to deny it what it wants. What it wants is irrelevant; the heart of a star, handed to the Lord and Lady on a platter. The destruction (and isn't that the irony, it thinks, that it is doing the job of its older prodigal brother, and that gives it a start to its heart, but it lasts only a moment and Desire, who lives in the moment, forgets about it the instant after it happens) of an entire solar system all for Desire's delight (and there is another irony, because Delight is dead). But someone, who is irrelevant, if they are not of the Family then Desire is hard pressed to care about their names, especially in the privacy of it's own hall, wishes to stop this.
But Desire is thinking. Desire is thinking of ways, of people, of hearts it can tug to make what it wants happen. Of desires it can manipulate into setting off a chain of events to cause the result that it seeks. Because there is nothing more important, in the mind of the Fifth of the Endless, than that. All the other Endless are what they are, and Desire knows it's place, above all of them as it is equal. Above Gods, because wasn't Desire there when God created the Universe, already bored, already waiting, already knowing what was to be?
Its tawny eyes finally alight, and to see the smile on its face would be to despair the desire and eventually fall into delirium from the beauty. Desire knows what it will do, and without wasting time, without hesitating to pause on the consequences of destroying an entire solar system, of destroying the sweet face of all those inhabitants who adore and worship at its feet because in their eyes there is nothing more powerful. This is true Desire's eyes, too, for the Lord and Lady knows that the only power that can drive anyone to truly understand the universe, the Endless, and the face of whatever transient and infintely doubtable god that it worships is housed in the Threshold, and is smoking its finest cigarettes because it can, and it does not care.
Cigarette smoke is whipped when the chamber of the heart pumps, just a little faster. Someone might notice that the spark in Desire's eye is a little sharper, its step a little quicker, its loveliness just a touch fiercer. But there is no one in the Threshold to see Desire's machinations, or the labyrinthine corridors of the Endless' heart, and Desire likes it that way.