Arthur Curry | Aquaman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
relentlesstide) wrote2013-01-05 08:43 pm
relentlesstide) wrote2013-01-05 08:43 pm
Entry tags:
Tu Shanshu Application ♒♒♒
Player Information:
Name: Nekky
Age: 23
Contact:
AIM: xnecronomical
Plurk:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
nekky
DW:nekky
Game Cast: N/A
Character Information:
Name: Arthur Curry; King Orin of Atlantis; Aquaman
Canon: DC Comics
Canon Point: Brightest Day #24, where he's in Miami with Mera, pondering on the weapons used by Xebel - Atlantean technology.
Age: Mid-thirties or thereabouts? Can I just say he's comic book years old? No? Mid-thirties.
Reference:
New Earth @ DC Wikia
Aquaman @ DC Wikia
Aquaman Origins @ DC Wikia
Atlantis @ DC Wikia
Atlanteans @ DC Wikia
Setting:
Imagine Earth. Third planet from the sun, little blue ball in the sky. Now imagine a bunch more of them. This cluster-eff is DC's famous multiverse, and yeah, it's about as complicated as it sounds. This is DC's method for explaining their ridiculous amount of retcons and ridiculous stuff that the writers do sometimes. The main Earth, and the one Arthur lives on, is New Earth, which was formed after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, which 'restarted' the continuity and merged aspects from several different Earths into one. In comic book terms, even DC got confused with their continuity and retcons and said 'Stop! Crisis time!' There have been a lot of Crises that have dealt with the multiverse but to Arthur, only the New Earth timeline is really important.
New Earth is basically our world with extras, though the map of countries and cities aren't exactly the same. Gotham City, Star City, Central City, Metropolis, the nations of Cerdia (which no longer exists because it dared to fuck with Atlantis and Atlantis fucked back), Bialiya, and etc. are unique to the DCU. Other things that New Earth has that our Earth doesn't are metahumans (people with superhuman abilities, gained through a variety of ways including magic, cosmic rays, lab accidents, alien genes, Atlantean genes, and evolution), alien life (the universe contains many, many inhabited planets and alien species, such as Oa where the Green Lantern Corps, a sort of intergalactic police force, is based, Krypton where the famous hero Superman was born on before its destruction, etc. 99% of these aren't relevant to Arthur's life as he only really has ties to Earth.), magic and gods, other dimensions, superheroes, supervillains (a wide variety of such, from the purely insane clown-themed Joker in Gotham to the super-smart and cunning Lex Luthor in Metropolis to the downright vicious Black Manta in the seas, and every level of bad in between) and, most importantly in this case, Atlantis.
Atlantis isn't just a myth on New Earth, it's 100% real, whether the surface world believes it or not. Long, long ago, approximately 9500 BC, it was the cradle of human civilization, the most advanced nation on Earth, both culturally and technologically. Atlantis itself is not a city, it's a continent, made up of twelve city-states, the main one of which is Poseidonis. Only tangentially important are the city-states of Tritonis (sister city to Poseidonis), Hy-Brasil, Thierna na Oge, and the others. It was a nation born out of magic and technology and science all at once while the rest of the world had yet to even discover the wheel. Unfortunately, though, some 9600 years ago was The Great Deluge. A meteor crashed into the Earth and disrupted the entire globe, shifting tectonic plates and causing flooding that sank the entire continent of Atlantis into the ocean.
Poseidonis, however, survived, because of the leadership of King Orin I, Arthur's ancestor, for whom he was given his royal Atlantean name of Orin. Orin I had had a giant dome built around the city to protect it from attackers, and it also protected the people of Poseidonis from the seas when the continent sank. King Orin had a brother named Shalako, who was more focused on magic while Orin focused more on science. Shalako used his magic to make a splinter group of Atlanteans water-breathers and left the city with them, to settle in nearby Tritonis. Tritonians started out with legs but eventually discovered mutations in their children because of the magics, the biggest example being their prince Kordax, who was born with green scales all over his body and blond hair, and he could talk to sea life (sound familiar?). Kordax was a monster in every regard, and the superstitious people under the waves soon started to abandon any children born with blond hair, believing them to have the 'curse of Kordax'. Eventually Tritonians evolved fish tails and became what we would consider merpeople. Orin, on the other hand, had his scientists work on a serum that would make his people water-breathers and adjusted to the ocean also, which worked, so Poseidonians could leave the city's dome after just a few years. They retain their legs to this day and still look generally human except for nearly invisible gills on their necks. People in the other Atlantean cities besides Tritonis and Poseidonis evolved differently and the ways are largely isolated, unknown and irrelevant to Arthur's life, as he's only visited them extremely briefly.
Because of isolation (both from other cities of Atlantis and from the surface world), Atlanteans developed their own unique culture, technologies, sciences, literature, and etc. While some aspects of Atlantis are behind the modern surface world in technology and science, they excel at weaponry - Atlantis has a monstrously huge, fearsome Navy. They're generally a very superstitious people, though they're starting to drift away from that under Aquaman's rule. Their history is extremely sacred to them, and it's considered unforgivable to break the myth of Atlantis. Most history is written down by one person every generation in a large book called The Atlantis Chronicles, usually added to by Poseidonis's ruler or someone chosen by them. Poseidonian splinter groups exist besides the Tritonians, groups who left the city to make their own way in small settlements, most notably the Idylists, Arthur's ward's people by birth (who are notable pacifists but otherwise not much is known about them), who abandoned Garth because of superstition about his purple eyes. Atlantis and all its people are quickly coming into the modern age, though. Because of Arthur's connection to the surface, now Atlanteans can get things from there and start to feel like a part of the world above. However it doesn't always tend to be a good thing; a few younger Atlanteans once got most of the city addicted to surface world television and internet, but a good thing is that Arthur campaigned for Atlantis to be represented in the UN (he was the ambassador for a short time while a man named Thessily was King, but that didn't last because Arthur used his diplomatic immunity to his advantage and people kicked up a fuss).
Despite everything going on below, up top, the world continued to evolve as one would expect, with Atlantis and all its discoveries lost to time, becoming little more than a myth in the minds of humankind. At least until much, much later, after the dawn of metahumans and superheroics.
The surface world evolved about how you'd expect (with some extras, like a caveman that becomes immortal named Vandal Savage, and magic curses and artifacts, etc.) up until around WWI and WWII, which is where things on the public front really started to change. 1938 is considered the Dawn of Superheroes, or the Golden Age of Superheroes; the first masked crusaders started to appear just prior to WWII, with the Crimson Avenger, the original Green Lantern, Wildcat, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and the original Flash. The Justice Society of America was born, the first group of 'mystery men' in the public eye, and with them, began the tradition of superheroes on New Earth.
Arthur belongs to the modern age of heroes, the one people are most passingly familiar with at least. This generation includes Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and etc. He helped to form the Justice League of America (an organization of superheroes that fight world threats that no one hero can handle alone), along with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), The Flash (Barry Allen), and Martian Manhunter. Superheroes on New Earth in the modern age are very much in the public eye, saving the world from widespread catastrophe as a team when one or two heroes can't handle the disaster themselves. Arthur has been with most incarnations of the JLA, having been thrust into the surface world's public eye not long before the creation of the JLA, when he helped The Flash with a villain. As you would expect, the heroes are often treated suspiciously by the public and lambasted in the news, but they also have adoring fans and genuinely grateful people whose lives they've saved in some way. It's very much like being a celebrity, but the job is a hell of a lot harder because it usually involves alien invasions or evil masterminds. Arthur's public image isn't always the best; most surfacers make him feel like an outsider, treating him like a 'fish man' or an oddity, and some no doubt consider him and Atlantis a threat (like when the nation of Cerdia waged a secret war on Atlantis while making it look like it wasn't their fault; Atlantis beat their leaders pretty badly and absorbed Cerdia as the first surface portion of Atlantis).
Because DC likes to retcon things at a whim, Arthur has had multiple origin stories over the years (new writers seem to like bringing a 'fresh face' to the title) that directly conflict with each other, but as my canon point is from Brightest Day, I'll be using the origin story that Geoff Johns went back to, which is the Silver Age story. (The Peter David story is the other 'main' one not rendered obsolete by the first Crisis event, and includes Atlantean wizards, Arthur as a feral sea child raised by dolphins, and... a lot of other magical ridiculousness. However, this story was pretty well established and some of it has to be incorporated in order to form a coherent timeline with all major players accounted for. Geoff Johns never really got to do this himself because the reboot happened, therefore, I'm sort of putting puzzle pieces together with canon here. I'm going to be honest with you, I just cannot take Feral Sea Child Arthur who Fell In Love With A Dolphin Before He Realized He Wasn't A Dolphin seriously.)
Arthur is half-Atlantean, the son of the exiled Queen Atlanna and the human lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry. Tom Curry found Atlanna adrift during a storm and brought her home, nursed her back to health, and fell in love. Nine months later, they had a son, and gave him the name, Arthur. At a very young age he started to exhibit strange powers; he was able to breathe underwater. When Atlanna was on her death bed, she finally told Tom about her heritage, and Arthur's - and prophesied that he would be king of the entire seven seas. Tom was driven a little nuts by the loss of the love of his life, and proceeded to teach Arthur and help him train his telepathy and swimming abilities so that he could become the king Atlanna wanted him to be. During this time, he felt he couldn't go back to his previous lonely state, and though he lived a very isolated life in the lighthouse with his son, he re-married a woman from town, but never truly loved her. They had a son named Orm, who was jealous and resentful of the attention and praise heaped onto Arthur and would grow up to become the Ocean Master, one of Arthur's foes.
Eventually Tom Curry died, leaving a young, teenage Arthur behind. Devastated at the loss of his father, he took to the seas, not feeling as if he belonged on land. He traveled the oceans, communicating with the sea life and playing hero, eventually ending up briefly in Alaska, and from here it's fairly easy to piece together the rest of his history from the wikias if you go with the assumption that Atlan is more of an ancestor than an actual father.
Brightest Day also introduces a new spin on Mera's backstory, which is fairly important to Arthur's: in this current canon, she's from a watery pocket dimension called Xebel, used ages ago as a prison colony (before it used to be called Dimension Aqua and was just another extradimensional waterworld, as you do) for Atlantis. The people there were forced to live their lives in Xebel, and Mera is the daughter of the current leader. Basically it's Atlantean extradimensional Australia. Mera was sent to kill the King of Atlantis for revenge but fell in love instead, because Arthur isn't anything like what she expected, and never went back.
Brightest Day came after Blackest Night and was kind of a convoluted storyline that involved a lot of things Arthur had never really been involved with before, so I'll briefly cover those things as well. In DC there is something called the Green Lantern Corps, basically space police with magic rings. Arthur's worked with a few Green Lanterns before with the Justice League but the whole lore behind it was never really important to his life and history until Blackest Night, when a bunch of black rings fell to Earth and turned dead people into horrible heart-eating zombies. See, the rings come in a bunch of different colors that all stand for something. The Black Lanterns stand for death and aren't really a Corps like the others. White Lanterns stand for life, and are run by something called The Entity - this is what Brightest Day is about, twelve formerly dead people being brought back to life fully by the White Lantern to fully banish Nekron and the black energy. Arthur was given his life back after he did what he was supposed to do.
The other Corps are Red (rage), Orange, (avarice), Yellow (fear, also known as the Sinestro Corps), Green (willpower), Blue (hope), Indigo (compassion), and Violet (love). Black and White are death and life and really the only rings Arthur personally comes into contact with. It took all the Corps to fight back Nekron's and the Black Hand's forces during Blackest Night but Arthur was a zombie at the time so he just sort of got brought back at the end of it all with his hand in tact.
Personality:
Most members of the Justice League can be described as having a sort of duality. Batman and Bruce Wayne, Superman and Clark Kent, John Jones and the Martian Manhunter... Separate entities in a way, the same person but two sides of a coin. Arthur Curry is nothing like them, not in that way. He has no secret identity, no alter ego; he doesn't separate himself into different sides like that. He's one whole person. He has many names, King of Atlantis, Orin the Second, Arthur Curry, Aquaman, but he is all of them at once, all the time, and all of his names are publicly associated with him. He doesn't feel the need to lie about who he is - his family is nothing like the families of others, there's no need to protect them that way, and there's never been much of a divide between work and personal life.
He has several names, but he dons them like uniforms depending on the situation, along with a couple certain personality traits associated with each - he's always him, but in different situations, he has to take on a different role, a different public face. King Orin is royalty, wise, commanding, tall and proud and used to being obeyed. He barks orders without a second thought and isn't afraid to strike fear into people. He's more than just a figurehead, he leads the Atlantean Navy into battle whenever necessary; he fights for and protects the people of Atlantis. Aquaman is the superhero and the member of the Justice League, confident and sure, protector of both land and sea. Arthur Curry is the husband, the father, the mentor, loving and devoted, though often hurt and angry. Others might treat them as separate people, but Arthur weaves them all together throughout his entire life; kings are strong but also compassionate and loyal, superheroes work as a team but also must not be afraid to give orders, patriarchs must protect their families. He's learned that compartmentalizing himself out like others might do is no way to live.
Arthur says about himself, "I'm buried under people's expectations of me. People see in me only what they need -- only what they want to see. It's up to me who I really am." It was a process through his youth, and he's struggled with finding his place in life, but finally, he knows who he is and what he must be. He is a king, even when he technically isn't, and he's thrived in that role where others would crumble or break. He doesn't look to anyone else to define him, not the public, not the League, and not even Atlantis. Garth says of his mentor once, "So many heroes seem to struggle. They seem unable to reconcile the conflicts in their lives. Their personal relationships are often disasters because of their commitment to serving others. But Arthur has overcome all that. It's an incredible testament to the strength of his character. While some of his colleagues live on accumulated fortune, and others struggle to stay employed - Arthur has the most demanding job of all. And he thrives on it."
On the outside, Arthur doesn’t seem like a very pleasant person. He’s often angry; he has a violent temper like the sea in a storm. Tragedy has marked his life and it isn’t a secret, but it’s made him somewhat stand-offish at first, extremely serious, and somewhat aloof and apart from even those he considers colleagues. This is probably because he’s naturally somewhat distrustful of surface-dwellers. He’s a difficult man to get to know, and only some of his League colleagues can really say they know him on a personal level. His father was a lighthouse keeper and a loner, and so Arthur growing up was still isolated from the rest of the world, his entire life revolving around the lighthouse and the sea. After his father died, he chose not to stay on the surface, and took to the ocean; his early ventures onto land were not entirely pleasant, such as when his first love’s grandparents angrily chased him out of Alaska because Kako was hurt. When he was first thrust into the public eye after helping Barry Allen, he wasn’t sure what to make of it. The press made him uncomfortable, and the public didn’t seem to take to him very well. He was an outsider. Really, he’s always been an outsider everywhere he goes - at first he wasn’t trusted in Atlantis because of the color of his hair, and on the surface he wasn’t trusted because he could breathe water and speak to sealife. Feelings of being an outsider, and of being abandoned and being betrayed (losing his father hurt him deeply, as did losing his son and being left by his wife) have all colored his life and contributed toward his automatic distrust of those around him until he knows them better. That said, he does have friends in Bruce, Clark, Diana, J’onn, Barry, and the others he’s spent the most time around, though he doesn’t tend to take his personal problems outside of his family and Diana.
Despite his sometimes-cranky disposition, he comes through as a strong, capable leader. He wears his crown, the role of King of Atlantis, as if he were born for it, and it comes through whenever he’s in the role of King, ambassador, or just a member of the League. He’s used to giving orders, and he’s used to them being obeyed. Being in charge comes to him as easy as breathing, it seems, though he’s spent most of his life growing used to his role. This means he tends to clash with similar personality types, especially in serious situations, because he trusts his own experience and plans more. He’s led Atlantis for years, and not just as a figurehead - he’s commanded the military in many conflicts and protected the city of Posiedonis from many threats. His confidence is not easily shaken, even with ridiculous odds against him, and he also isn’t afraid to throw his power around if necessary. He’s put a stop to conflicts just by leading the massive Atlantean Navy out of the sea and pointing out that he technically rules about three-quarters of the entire planet.
Though he tends to be stubborn and hot-headed, he also knows his own limitations and failings. It took time but he grew and learned that to be a King, you must know yourself and who you really are, not what people see you as - which also means knowing your own shortcomings. If he knows someone else has a more tactical mind, he’ll step aside and let them create the plan. If something needs to be done, he’ll put aside his stubbornness and temper to do it. He’s an extremely determined man, very devoted to his kingdom and to doing the right thing, and loyal to the people he considers friends and colleagues. If you’ve earned it, his respect is a hundred percent. He would give his life for the world and for Atlantis without hesitation, because that’s what being a king means.
There is more to Arthur than just being royalty, though. Beneath the powerful King is a genuinely good, idealistic man, albeit one who sometimes makes mistakes. Vulko said of him, ”But hatred was never your way, was it, Arthur? You could certainly be hotheaded, but the anger you displayed was based on deep idealism. I know that now. Even at your most stubborn, you were always fair and honorable." It’s because he’s a fair, honorable man that he is a good king, and he knows that as well as anyone. His natural distrust of others, especially of surfacedwellers, is something that he works to overcome, because he wants to believe that the world is a good, just place; if it isn’t, he works to make it so. He is also forgiving. Though he was originally outcast from Atlantis because of superstition, he embraced them and called the city his home, though he has a soft spot for fellow outcasts, often showing them the compassion that he would have wanted. This is seen when Arthur takes in a young boy named Garth, cast out from his tribe, and Garth quickly becomes his closest friend and someone very dear to him. His entire family, actually, is a band of outcasts in a way, people stuck between two worlds. Mera between Xebel and Atlantis, Arthur, Lorena, and Jackson between land and sea, Garth abandoned by his birth parents, Dolphin the once-loner. He says to Mera, with Jackson and Lorena at their sides, "Siren was right, Mera. You are an outcast. But so am I. Each one of us is caught between two worlds. Each one of us knows how hard it is to face that alone. Which is why we never will be. Never again."
Though someone might not guess it from his serious public self, Arthur Curry is a very loving man. He struggles to show it at times, because expressing himself in anything but anger can be difficult for him, but he loves very deeply, as strong and sure as the current. He is a husband and a father, and those roles mean as much to him as the role of King. Mera is the love of his life, and when she left him, it was devastating, but whenever she wanted to come back, he always forgave her. He has also loved all of his sons more than anything in the world. Tom Curry was a good father to him and he loved him deeply, and some part of Arthur wants to be like the father he remembers. Arthur Jr. was his life, and Arthur was never the same after he was murdered by Black Manta. He also considers Garth to be his son, and practically raised him as such, though sometimes it’s hard for him to tell Garth just how much he loves him and how proud of him he is. Their relationship was rocky at times but Arthur never stopped having faith in him. Koryak is his third son and losing him also hurt; he has a lot of regrets regarding Koryak, and how they never got to be as close as Arthur wanted. He also considered Garth’s (long deceased) girlfriend and wife, Tula and Dolphin, to be family. Garth’s son Cerdian was much like a grandson to Arthur and he loved the boy, showering the baby with affection. Most people think of a royal family as being connected only by blood, but not the royal family of Atlantis. Arthur chose his own family, and even went as far as to make Garth his heir.
He shares some of his colleagues’ tendency to take youths in under his wing. He felt a kinship with Garth and trained him, taught him, and raised him like a son. Garth loved Tula so he considered her family as well, and often left his son in her care. When he was alone and a part of San Diego sank into the ocean, he took in Lorena Marquez, who became the new Aquagirl, and became quite fond of her too. He never really seemed to question having Lorena at his side, even though she was a civilian and a regular teenage girl up until the city sank, so perhaps his judgement when he’s lonely isn’t the best. Jackson Hyde, aka Kaldur’ahm is a bit different, though; he didn’t immediately attach to Jackson the way he did Lorena, probably because Garth’s recent death was still weighing heavily on him and he was reluctant to have a new Aqualad. Still, he seems to have accepted him, welcoming him into the group with Lorena and his wife, because he's found a kinship in Jackson as well.
In short, Arthur is a resilient, compassionate, dutiful man and a fair, honorable king. His life has been touched by so many personal tragedies (the loss of all three of his sons, his grandson, Tula and Dolphin, the early loss of his father and mother, long periods of separation from his wife, being exiled from Atlantis and losing his throne...) but he doesn’t let his own feelings get in the way of his duty as king and as Aquaman. Though he struggles with feeling like an outsider, he tries not to let it push him away from the world, and he embraces and protects both the land and sea - often from each other, if need be.
"Talk all you want about Arthur's telepathic powers-- or even his incredible strength, honed by the pressure of the depths. It's his tremendous resolve that makes him the hero he is. The man is as relentless as the tides."
When Arthur finds out he's been pulled to somewhere between life, death and dreaming, he probably won't take it very well, but at this point he'll be more thoughtful about it than angry because of his own recent brush with death, life, and zombieism and because of everything that's happened to him. He's fairly accustomed to things like this, though, so he probably won't think it's all that strange - distressing, but not strange. He'll probably hold out hope that he'll get to see his sons again, because he's still very much a grieving man; he's lost both Garth and Koryak pretty recently, and he's never really gotten over Artie Jr. However, that won't stop him from trying to find a way back home, because at his canon point, something is going on in Atlantis that is weighing heavily on his mind and he needs to be there for Jackson and Lorena.
Appearance:
Arthur Curry is a rather fetching half-Atlantean and looks pretty much like a regular human being. Canon on Atlantean physiology is sometimes contradictory (comics) but to simplify things, I'm going with the assumption that they have gills, located behind the ears on the neck. These are usually barely, if at all visible. He stands at about 6'1", and weighs roughly 325 pounds because, while he might not look any heavier than other men of his build, his muscles are more dense from adapting to the pressures of the ocean. His hair is blond, neatly trimmed at this point instead of the flowing mane he used to have, and his eyes are described as "sea blue". He used to have a prosthetic hand but then he was a zombie and then he got better. Sometimes he grows a fabulous beard.
He's not shown in civvies very often. Usually he just wears his costume everywhere - an orange scaled shirt, green pants made out of a slick material, green gloves with stylized tops that resemble fins, and a gold belt with a buckle in the shape of the glyph that stands for Atlantis.
Picture
Abilities:
An important thing to note is that Arthur doesn't necessarily feel that he's a supwerpowered individual, though most people tend to classify him as one. He's always been able to do the things he can do though, so it doesn't feel like 'super' to him. Most of his actual powers relate to his half-Atleantean biology, which is fairly different from a human's. Atlanteans are built to survive the depths of the ocean, and as such, Arthur can breathe underwater indefinitely through a set of gills located on his neck beneath his ears. These flaps usually lie flat against his skin and are barely, if at all, visible. Atlanteans can breathe air for short periods of time, but because Arthur is only half-Atlantean, he can survive on land for much longer, though not indefinitely because his body requires much more hydration than a human's. He also takes in minerals and trace elements from seawater, so he tends to feel a little anemic if he has to survive on freshwater, though it is possible.
Another adaptation due to his Atlantean biology is that his muscle tissue is much more dense; his body is meant to move quickly and agilely in the ridiculous pressures of the ocean depths (it's assumed he can travel about as deep as 36,000 feet below). Because of this, he's quite fast, and superhumanly strong and resilient on land. According to the wiki, he's about 150 times stronger than a regular human being, though he's not often thought of as super strong or durable because he's usually compared to people like Superman and Wonder Woman. His thick skin difficult to cut and small bullets won't pierce his him, though he's still vulnerable to larger rounds. His senses are heightened as well, most notably his sight and hearing, because his eyes are adapted to see in the dark depths of the sea and his ears are adapted to hear sound traveling through water. He used to tend to mumble when he first started going up on land again after spending so much time in the water, because sound travels more easily through water than air.
His last power is somewhat unique to him (though a few others have shown similar abilities), a sort of genetic 'anomaly' from being descended from the ancient Prince Kordax: Arthur has a low degree of telepathy, one specifically suited for speaking with marine life, though he's been able to put it to other uses as well. He can communicate mentally with other telepaths, most often J'onn J'onzz, and to a low degree (often in conjunction with another telepath) he can do mind probes and mental attacks. Primarily his telepathy is used to communicate with sealife, though; the more evolved the creature, the easier it is for him to communicate with them. Dolphins and whales, for example, are extremely smart and he can have full blown conversations with them, but things like plankton and barnacles, he might just be able to get across the gist of what he wants them to do, which is more difficult, but he's had lots of practice. A misconception about Aquaman is that he commands ocean creatures to do his bidding, when that isn't true at all. He spent his youth traveling the sea and gaining the respect of his fellow marine life. He requests they help him, and they often do because they respect him and consider him their king and protector. Another thing he's used his telepathy to do is find the evolved-from-marine-life parts of another creature or person's brain and manipulate it, such as the time he located the basal ganglia of a White Martian's brain and induced a seizure.
His learned skillset goes along with his Atlantean heritage and his role as monarch. He's an expert swimmer, and his speed in the water is pretty much unparalleled in DC - according to the wiki, his regular speed is about 100mph in the water, though he can push himself much faster if he wants to. He's also a fairly advanced combatant and tactician, especially military tactics. He commanded the Atlantean Navy for a while, and he also wouldn't be on the Justice League if he didn't know how to fight. To round out his skillset, he's an accomplished leader and speaker from being ruler of Atlantis and the seven seas, and a diplomat, though he's... not so good at democracy. Being a King and all. Also don't give him diplomatic immunity, he tends to use it to do whatever he needs to do even if it isn't exactly okay.
Inventory:
- The clothes on his back (his costume described under appearance)
- JLA signal device in his belt which probably won't work
Suite: Water Sector, for obvious reasons. He'd be much more at home with all the water sources, and he'd be able to travel faster through the canals than anywhere else. He wouldn't care that the Water Sector is a poorer district, really. 'Closer to the people' and all that. Two floors would be nice but he's not picky if he can have a private pool.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person:
Nothing on Tu Vishan is quite the same as Earth, but this, Arthur has found, is close enough to count. He leans on the deck railing of the small fishing boat, and breathes in the briny air off the choppy mid-morning waves. No matter what dimension, the sea always seems to be constant in some ways, at least the ways that matter most. The smell of salt, the spray on his face and bare chest, the ambient sounds of an ocean teeming with life - it's as close to home as he ever gets here, and when he closes his eyes he can transport himself back to his youth, to the coast of Maine, for just a few snatched moments. He can remember going out with his father on their small boat, bringing in the crab pots for dinner that night or casting their lines for something more substantial; his father would teach him about the ocean then, about the marine life they pulled in, about the dolphins they would sometimes see playing on the horizon, about the largest denizen of the ocean to the smallest. They were still learning about Arthur's strange abilities then; his father taught him about the circle of life, about fishing for necessity, about being humane.
The kedan were skeptical when he joined the little fishing crew to get his required work out of the way. 'The man who speaks to fish is a fisherman?' They don't understand, but he's used to that by now. It's too much of a pain to explain that every predator species hunts or fishes, and that he understands the necessity. He would no more tell a shark to eat kelp than he would tell a human or kedan to never cast a line in the ocean. Even an Atlantean's diet consists of fish, among other things. Still, he never uses his gift to make the fishing more profitable. Every creature deserves a chance.
A voice pulls him back to the here and now - the captain of the little trawler, an older kedan fond of blueish skin and a scraggly beard, barking, "You! The net is snagged, go below and check it out." Arthur can't quite stop the wry smile that touches at his lips; even fishing boat captains here are similar in some ways, he thinks, remembering the old lighthouse keeper McCaffrey.
Arthur was once a king, but he doesn't say a word about the commanding tone. A man's boat is his castle, and he is but a guest on this one, hired help. He dives overboard without a thought, seawater flowing over his gills. Nothing quite beats this feeling; air is so much less rich, and freshwater isn't as refreshing. He soaks up the trace minerals and salt of the sea and for just a moment, enjoys being alive again.
At least until a cold, panicked sense of fear touches at his brain, and he frowns, diving deeper, eyes automatically adjusting to the dimmer light this far down. The fisherman's net, caught on a large, jagged patch of rock, and inside it... The creature doesn't look like any dolphin he's ever seen, there are marked differences in physiology, and her speech is difficult to understand - one thing he's found in his time here is that the marine life is different, and it's like learning new dialects of a language he's known his whole life - but he recognizes the creature as distantly related to a dolphin, and about on the same level intelligence-wise. She's caught in the net with the usual catch of fish, thrashing, dangerously close to the sharp edges of rock.
Arthur's never had to think too hard about situations like these. There is a sharp knife in his belt, for cutting tangled lines, and he pulls it out in one hand as he swims closer to the mess of net. The dolphin-like creature lets out a series of squeals and clicks that sound somewhat like words to Arthur, but not quite. Still, he knows fear, and he mentally projects calm instead. "Easy. I'm here to help. I'm a friend." There's still a communications barrier between him and this sea, but as he starts to saw through the net, jaggedly and roughly to make it look as if it's been shredded by the rocks, the creature stills and becomes curious. When the hole is large enough, she slips out, along with most of the catch, but Arthur isn't worried. The fishermen will cast another net.
"Who are you?" The dolphin-like being says, her 'voice' watery and a little garbled in his head.
"They call me the Swimmer. I am a friend."
He was once a king.
Network:
[The video starts up on a blond man sitting at the console in his suite, a small, glass bowl of sea water containing a small, brightly-finned but unusual-looking fish in front of him. For now, though, his attention is on the screen, his expression thoughtful, eyebrows creased.] I have been told when I was unceremoniously fished from the sea that I have been brought to a place between life, death, and dreaming.
I'm not sure how this is possible. I have been dead before, and I have- straddled the line between life and death unwillingly. It was not this.
[He glances down at the fish suddenly, some other emotion crossing his face briefly. Something bittersweet.] And I can't be dreaming. Things would be much different. [It's stating the obvious, of course, but there's a weight to his voice when he says it. He's obviously distrustful of this entire situation, and why wouldn't he be? Other dimensions are standard fare in his life.]
[He glances up again, eyes narrowed slightly, taking on a more commanding tone.] I am Arthur Curry of Atlantis, and if there is anyone here I'd actually wish to speak to, contact me. You'll know who you are. [He seems to have said all he intends to say, and as he starts to close down the console, he leans down to look eye to eye with the little fish in the bowl, murmuring something to it.]
Name: Nekky
Age: 23
Contact:
AIM: xnecronomical
Plurk:
DW:
nekkyGame Cast: N/A
Character Information:
Name: Arthur Curry; King Orin of Atlantis; Aquaman
Canon: DC Comics
Canon Point: Brightest Day #24, where he's in Miami with Mera, pondering on the weapons used by Xebel - Atlantean technology.
Age: Mid-thirties or thereabouts? Can I just say he's comic book years old? No? Mid-thirties.
Reference:
New Earth @ DC Wikia
Aquaman @ DC Wikia
Aquaman Origins @ DC Wikia
Atlantis @ DC Wikia
Atlanteans @ DC Wikia
Setting:
Imagine Earth. Third planet from the sun, little blue ball in the sky. Now imagine a bunch more of them. This cluster-eff is DC's famous multiverse, and yeah, it's about as complicated as it sounds. This is DC's method for explaining their ridiculous amount of retcons and ridiculous stuff that the writers do sometimes. The main Earth, and the one Arthur lives on, is New Earth, which was formed after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, which 'restarted' the continuity and merged aspects from several different Earths into one. In comic book terms, even DC got confused with their continuity and retcons and said 'Stop! Crisis time!' There have been a lot of Crises that have dealt with the multiverse but to Arthur, only the New Earth timeline is really important.
New Earth is basically our world with extras, though the map of countries and cities aren't exactly the same. Gotham City, Star City, Central City, Metropolis, the nations of Cerdia (which no longer exists because it dared to fuck with Atlantis and Atlantis fucked back), Bialiya, and etc. are unique to the DCU. Other things that New Earth has that our Earth doesn't are metahumans (people with superhuman abilities, gained through a variety of ways including magic, cosmic rays, lab accidents, alien genes, Atlantean genes, and evolution), alien life (the universe contains many, many inhabited planets and alien species, such as Oa where the Green Lantern Corps, a sort of intergalactic police force, is based, Krypton where the famous hero Superman was born on before its destruction, etc. 99% of these aren't relevant to Arthur's life as he only really has ties to Earth.), magic and gods, other dimensions, superheroes, supervillains (a wide variety of such, from the purely insane clown-themed Joker in Gotham to the super-smart and cunning Lex Luthor in Metropolis to the downright vicious Black Manta in the seas, and every level of bad in between) and, most importantly in this case, Atlantis.
Atlantis isn't just a myth on New Earth, it's 100% real, whether the surface world believes it or not. Long, long ago, approximately 9500 BC, it was the cradle of human civilization, the most advanced nation on Earth, both culturally and technologically. Atlantis itself is not a city, it's a continent, made up of twelve city-states, the main one of which is Poseidonis. Only tangentially important are the city-states of Tritonis (sister city to Poseidonis), Hy-Brasil, Thierna na Oge, and the others. It was a nation born out of magic and technology and science all at once while the rest of the world had yet to even discover the wheel. Unfortunately, though, some 9600 years ago was The Great Deluge. A meteor crashed into the Earth and disrupted the entire globe, shifting tectonic plates and causing flooding that sank the entire continent of Atlantis into the ocean.
Poseidonis, however, survived, because of the leadership of King Orin I, Arthur's ancestor, for whom he was given his royal Atlantean name of Orin. Orin I had had a giant dome built around the city to protect it from attackers, and it also protected the people of Poseidonis from the seas when the continent sank. King Orin had a brother named Shalako, who was more focused on magic while Orin focused more on science. Shalako used his magic to make a splinter group of Atlanteans water-breathers and left the city with them, to settle in nearby Tritonis. Tritonians started out with legs but eventually discovered mutations in their children because of the magics, the biggest example being their prince Kordax, who was born with green scales all over his body and blond hair, and he could talk to sea life (sound familiar?). Kordax was a monster in every regard, and the superstitious people under the waves soon started to abandon any children born with blond hair, believing them to have the 'curse of Kordax'. Eventually Tritonians evolved fish tails and became what we would consider merpeople. Orin, on the other hand, had his scientists work on a serum that would make his people water-breathers and adjusted to the ocean also, which worked, so Poseidonians could leave the city's dome after just a few years. They retain their legs to this day and still look generally human except for nearly invisible gills on their necks. People in the other Atlantean cities besides Tritonis and Poseidonis evolved differently and the ways are largely isolated, unknown and irrelevant to Arthur's life, as he's only visited them extremely briefly.
Because of isolation (both from other cities of Atlantis and from the surface world), Atlanteans developed their own unique culture, technologies, sciences, literature, and etc. While some aspects of Atlantis are behind the modern surface world in technology and science, they excel at weaponry - Atlantis has a monstrously huge, fearsome Navy. They're generally a very superstitious people, though they're starting to drift away from that under Aquaman's rule. Their history is extremely sacred to them, and it's considered unforgivable to break the myth of Atlantis. Most history is written down by one person every generation in a large book called The Atlantis Chronicles, usually added to by Poseidonis's ruler or someone chosen by them. Poseidonian splinter groups exist besides the Tritonians, groups who left the city to make their own way in small settlements, most notably the Idylists, Arthur's ward's people by birth (who are notable pacifists but otherwise not much is known about them), who abandoned Garth because of superstition about his purple eyes. Atlantis and all its people are quickly coming into the modern age, though. Because of Arthur's connection to the surface, now Atlanteans can get things from there and start to feel like a part of the world above. However it doesn't always tend to be a good thing; a few younger Atlanteans once got most of the city addicted to surface world television and internet, but a good thing is that Arthur campaigned for Atlantis to be represented in the UN (he was the ambassador for a short time while a man named Thessily was King, but that didn't last because Arthur used his diplomatic immunity to his advantage and people kicked up a fuss).
Despite everything going on below, up top, the world continued to evolve as one would expect, with Atlantis and all its discoveries lost to time, becoming little more than a myth in the minds of humankind. At least until much, much later, after the dawn of metahumans and superheroics.
The surface world evolved about how you'd expect (with some extras, like a caveman that becomes immortal named Vandal Savage, and magic curses and artifacts, etc.) up until around WWI and WWII, which is where things on the public front really started to change. 1938 is considered the Dawn of Superheroes, or the Golden Age of Superheroes; the first masked crusaders started to appear just prior to WWII, with the Crimson Avenger, the original Green Lantern, Wildcat, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and the original Flash. The Justice Society of America was born, the first group of 'mystery men' in the public eye, and with them, began the tradition of superheroes on New Earth.
Arthur belongs to the modern age of heroes, the one people are most passingly familiar with at least. This generation includes Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and etc. He helped to form the Justice League of America (an organization of superheroes that fight world threats that no one hero can handle alone), along with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), The Flash (Barry Allen), and Martian Manhunter. Superheroes on New Earth in the modern age are very much in the public eye, saving the world from widespread catastrophe as a team when one or two heroes can't handle the disaster themselves. Arthur has been with most incarnations of the JLA, having been thrust into the surface world's public eye not long before the creation of the JLA, when he helped The Flash with a villain. As you would expect, the heroes are often treated suspiciously by the public and lambasted in the news, but they also have adoring fans and genuinely grateful people whose lives they've saved in some way. It's very much like being a celebrity, but the job is a hell of a lot harder because it usually involves alien invasions or evil masterminds. Arthur's public image isn't always the best; most surfacers make him feel like an outsider, treating him like a 'fish man' or an oddity, and some no doubt consider him and Atlantis a threat (like when the nation of Cerdia waged a secret war on Atlantis while making it look like it wasn't their fault; Atlantis beat their leaders pretty badly and absorbed Cerdia as the first surface portion of Atlantis).
Because DC likes to retcon things at a whim, Arthur has had multiple origin stories over the years (new writers seem to like bringing a 'fresh face' to the title) that directly conflict with each other, but as my canon point is from Brightest Day, I'll be using the origin story that Geoff Johns went back to, which is the Silver Age story. (The Peter David story is the other 'main' one not rendered obsolete by the first Crisis event, and includes Atlantean wizards, Arthur as a feral sea child raised by dolphins, and... a lot of other magical ridiculousness. However, this story was pretty well established and some of it has to be incorporated in order to form a coherent timeline with all major players accounted for. Geoff Johns never really got to do this himself because the reboot happened, therefore, I'm sort of putting puzzle pieces together with canon here. I'm going to be honest with you, I just cannot take Feral Sea Child Arthur who Fell In Love With A Dolphin Before He Realized He Wasn't A Dolphin seriously.)
Arthur is half-Atlantean, the son of the exiled Queen Atlanna and the human lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry. Tom Curry found Atlanna adrift during a storm and brought her home, nursed her back to health, and fell in love. Nine months later, they had a son, and gave him the name, Arthur. At a very young age he started to exhibit strange powers; he was able to breathe underwater. When Atlanna was on her death bed, she finally told Tom about her heritage, and Arthur's - and prophesied that he would be king of the entire seven seas. Tom was driven a little nuts by the loss of the love of his life, and proceeded to teach Arthur and help him train his telepathy and swimming abilities so that he could become the king Atlanna wanted him to be. During this time, he felt he couldn't go back to his previous lonely state, and though he lived a very isolated life in the lighthouse with his son, he re-married a woman from town, but never truly loved her. They had a son named Orm, who was jealous and resentful of the attention and praise heaped onto Arthur and would grow up to become the Ocean Master, one of Arthur's foes.
Eventually Tom Curry died, leaving a young, teenage Arthur behind. Devastated at the loss of his father, he took to the seas, not feeling as if he belonged on land. He traveled the oceans, communicating with the sea life and playing hero, eventually ending up briefly in Alaska, and from here it's fairly easy to piece together the rest of his history from the wikias if you go with the assumption that Atlan is more of an ancestor than an actual father.
Brightest Day also introduces a new spin on Mera's backstory, which is fairly important to Arthur's: in this current canon, she's from a watery pocket dimension called Xebel, used ages ago as a prison colony (before it used to be called Dimension Aqua and was just another extradimensional waterworld, as you do) for Atlantis. The people there were forced to live their lives in Xebel, and Mera is the daughter of the current leader. Basically it's Atlantean extradimensional Australia. Mera was sent to kill the King of Atlantis for revenge but fell in love instead, because Arthur isn't anything like what she expected, and never went back.
Brightest Day came after Blackest Night and was kind of a convoluted storyline that involved a lot of things Arthur had never really been involved with before, so I'll briefly cover those things as well. In DC there is something called the Green Lantern Corps, basically space police with magic rings. Arthur's worked with a few Green Lanterns before with the Justice League but the whole lore behind it was never really important to his life and history until Blackest Night, when a bunch of black rings fell to Earth and turned dead people into horrible heart-eating zombies. See, the rings come in a bunch of different colors that all stand for something. The Black Lanterns stand for death and aren't really a Corps like the others. White Lanterns stand for life, and are run by something called The Entity - this is what Brightest Day is about, twelve formerly dead people being brought back to life fully by the White Lantern to fully banish Nekron and the black energy. Arthur was given his life back after he did what he was supposed to do.
The other Corps are Red (rage), Orange, (avarice), Yellow (fear, also known as the Sinestro Corps), Green (willpower), Blue (hope), Indigo (compassion), and Violet (love). Black and White are death and life and really the only rings Arthur personally comes into contact with. It took all the Corps to fight back Nekron's and the Black Hand's forces during Blackest Night but Arthur was a zombie at the time so he just sort of got brought back at the end of it all with his hand in tact.
Personality:
Most members of the Justice League can be described as having a sort of duality. Batman and Bruce Wayne, Superman and Clark Kent, John Jones and the Martian Manhunter... Separate entities in a way, the same person but two sides of a coin. Arthur Curry is nothing like them, not in that way. He has no secret identity, no alter ego; he doesn't separate himself into different sides like that. He's one whole person. He has many names, King of Atlantis, Orin the Second, Arthur Curry, Aquaman, but he is all of them at once, all the time, and all of his names are publicly associated with him. He doesn't feel the need to lie about who he is - his family is nothing like the families of others, there's no need to protect them that way, and there's never been much of a divide between work and personal life.
He has several names, but he dons them like uniforms depending on the situation, along with a couple certain personality traits associated with each - he's always him, but in different situations, he has to take on a different role, a different public face. King Orin is royalty, wise, commanding, tall and proud and used to being obeyed. He barks orders without a second thought and isn't afraid to strike fear into people. He's more than just a figurehead, he leads the Atlantean Navy into battle whenever necessary; he fights for and protects the people of Atlantis. Aquaman is the superhero and the member of the Justice League, confident and sure, protector of both land and sea. Arthur Curry is the husband, the father, the mentor, loving and devoted, though often hurt and angry. Others might treat them as separate people, but Arthur weaves them all together throughout his entire life; kings are strong but also compassionate and loyal, superheroes work as a team but also must not be afraid to give orders, patriarchs must protect their families. He's learned that compartmentalizing himself out like others might do is no way to live.
Arthur says about himself, "I'm buried under people's expectations of me. People see in me only what they need -- only what they want to see. It's up to me who I really am." It was a process through his youth, and he's struggled with finding his place in life, but finally, he knows who he is and what he must be. He is a king, even when he technically isn't, and he's thrived in that role where others would crumble or break. He doesn't look to anyone else to define him, not the public, not the League, and not even Atlantis. Garth says of his mentor once, "So many heroes seem to struggle. They seem unable to reconcile the conflicts in their lives. Their personal relationships are often disasters because of their commitment to serving others. But Arthur has overcome all that. It's an incredible testament to the strength of his character. While some of his colleagues live on accumulated fortune, and others struggle to stay employed - Arthur has the most demanding job of all. And he thrives on it."
On the outside, Arthur doesn’t seem like a very pleasant person. He’s often angry; he has a violent temper like the sea in a storm. Tragedy has marked his life and it isn’t a secret, but it’s made him somewhat stand-offish at first, extremely serious, and somewhat aloof and apart from even those he considers colleagues. This is probably because he’s naturally somewhat distrustful of surface-dwellers. He’s a difficult man to get to know, and only some of his League colleagues can really say they know him on a personal level. His father was a lighthouse keeper and a loner, and so Arthur growing up was still isolated from the rest of the world, his entire life revolving around the lighthouse and the sea. After his father died, he chose not to stay on the surface, and took to the ocean; his early ventures onto land were not entirely pleasant, such as when his first love’s grandparents angrily chased him out of Alaska because Kako was hurt. When he was first thrust into the public eye after helping Barry Allen, he wasn’t sure what to make of it. The press made him uncomfortable, and the public didn’t seem to take to him very well. He was an outsider. Really, he’s always been an outsider everywhere he goes - at first he wasn’t trusted in Atlantis because of the color of his hair, and on the surface he wasn’t trusted because he could breathe water and speak to sealife. Feelings of being an outsider, and of being abandoned and being betrayed (losing his father hurt him deeply, as did losing his son and being left by his wife) have all colored his life and contributed toward his automatic distrust of those around him until he knows them better. That said, he does have friends in Bruce, Clark, Diana, J’onn, Barry, and the others he’s spent the most time around, though he doesn’t tend to take his personal problems outside of his family and Diana.
Despite his sometimes-cranky disposition, he comes through as a strong, capable leader. He wears his crown, the role of King of Atlantis, as if he were born for it, and it comes through whenever he’s in the role of King, ambassador, or just a member of the League. He’s used to giving orders, and he’s used to them being obeyed. Being in charge comes to him as easy as breathing, it seems, though he’s spent most of his life growing used to his role. This means he tends to clash with similar personality types, especially in serious situations, because he trusts his own experience and plans more. He’s led Atlantis for years, and not just as a figurehead - he’s commanded the military in many conflicts and protected the city of Posiedonis from many threats. His confidence is not easily shaken, even with ridiculous odds against him, and he also isn’t afraid to throw his power around if necessary. He’s put a stop to conflicts just by leading the massive Atlantean Navy out of the sea and pointing out that he technically rules about three-quarters of the entire planet.
Though he tends to be stubborn and hot-headed, he also knows his own limitations and failings. It took time but he grew and learned that to be a King, you must know yourself and who you really are, not what people see you as - which also means knowing your own shortcomings. If he knows someone else has a more tactical mind, he’ll step aside and let them create the plan. If something needs to be done, he’ll put aside his stubbornness and temper to do it. He’s an extremely determined man, very devoted to his kingdom and to doing the right thing, and loyal to the people he considers friends and colleagues. If you’ve earned it, his respect is a hundred percent. He would give his life for the world and for Atlantis without hesitation, because that’s what being a king means.
There is more to Arthur than just being royalty, though. Beneath the powerful King is a genuinely good, idealistic man, albeit one who sometimes makes mistakes. Vulko said of him, ”But hatred was never your way, was it, Arthur? You could certainly be hotheaded, but the anger you displayed was based on deep idealism. I know that now. Even at your most stubborn, you were always fair and honorable." It’s because he’s a fair, honorable man that he is a good king, and he knows that as well as anyone. His natural distrust of others, especially of surfacedwellers, is something that he works to overcome, because he wants to believe that the world is a good, just place; if it isn’t, he works to make it so. He is also forgiving. Though he was originally outcast from Atlantis because of superstition, he embraced them and called the city his home, though he has a soft spot for fellow outcasts, often showing them the compassion that he would have wanted. This is seen when Arthur takes in a young boy named Garth, cast out from his tribe, and Garth quickly becomes his closest friend and someone very dear to him. His entire family, actually, is a band of outcasts in a way, people stuck between two worlds. Mera between Xebel and Atlantis, Arthur, Lorena, and Jackson between land and sea, Garth abandoned by his birth parents, Dolphin the once-loner. He says to Mera, with Jackson and Lorena at their sides, "Siren was right, Mera. You are an outcast. But so am I. Each one of us is caught between two worlds. Each one of us knows how hard it is to face that alone. Which is why we never will be. Never again."
Though someone might not guess it from his serious public self, Arthur Curry is a very loving man. He struggles to show it at times, because expressing himself in anything but anger can be difficult for him, but he loves very deeply, as strong and sure as the current. He is a husband and a father, and those roles mean as much to him as the role of King. Mera is the love of his life, and when she left him, it was devastating, but whenever she wanted to come back, he always forgave her. He has also loved all of his sons more than anything in the world. Tom Curry was a good father to him and he loved him deeply, and some part of Arthur wants to be like the father he remembers. Arthur Jr. was his life, and Arthur was never the same after he was murdered by Black Manta. He also considers Garth to be his son, and practically raised him as such, though sometimes it’s hard for him to tell Garth just how much he loves him and how proud of him he is. Their relationship was rocky at times but Arthur never stopped having faith in him. Koryak is his third son and losing him also hurt; he has a lot of regrets regarding Koryak, and how they never got to be as close as Arthur wanted. He also considered Garth’s (long deceased) girlfriend and wife, Tula and Dolphin, to be family. Garth’s son Cerdian was much like a grandson to Arthur and he loved the boy, showering the baby with affection. Most people think of a royal family as being connected only by blood, but not the royal family of Atlantis. Arthur chose his own family, and even went as far as to make Garth his heir.
He shares some of his colleagues’ tendency to take youths in under his wing. He felt a kinship with Garth and trained him, taught him, and raised him like a son. Garth loved Tula so he considered her family as well, and often left his son in her care. When he was alone and a part of San Diego sank into the ocean, he took in Lorena Marquez, who became the new Aquagirl, and became quite fond of her too. He never really seemed to question having Lorena at his side, even though she was a civilian and a regular teenage girl up until the city sank, so perhaps his judgement when he’s lonely isn’t the best. Jackson Hyde, aka Kaldur’ahm is a bit different, though; he didn’t immediately attach to Jackson the way he did Lorena, probably because Garth’s recent death was still weighing heavily on him and he was reluctant to have a new Aqualad. Still, he seems to have accepted him, welcoming him into the group with Lorena and his wife, because he's found a kinship in Jackson as well.
In short, Arthur is a resilient, compassionate, dutiful man and a fair, honorable king. His life has been touched by so many personal tragedies (the loss of all three of his sons, his grandson, Tula and Dolphin, the early loss of his father and mother, long periods of separation from his wife, being exiled from Atlantis and losing his throne...) but he doesn’t let his own feelings get in the way of his duty as king and as Aquaman. Though he struggles with feeling like an outsider, he tries not to let it push him away from the world, and he embraces and protects both the land and sea - often from each other, if need be.
"Talk all you want about Arthur's telepathic powers-- or even his incredible strength, honed by the pressure of the depths. It's his tremendous resolve that makes him the hero he is. The man is as relentless as the tides."
When Arthur finds out he's been pulled to somewhere between life, death and dreaming, he probably won't take it very well, but at this point he'll be more thoughtful about it than angry because of his own recent brush with death, life, and zombieism and because of everything that's happened to him. He's fairly accustomed to things like this, though, so he probably won't think it's all that strange - distressing, but not strange. He'll probably hold out hope that he'll get to see his sons again, because he's still very much a grieving man; he's lost both Garth and Koryak pretty recently, and he's never really gotten over Artie Jr. However, that won't stop him from trying to find a way back home, because at his canon point, something is going on in Atlantis that is weighing heavily on his mind and he needs to be there for Jackson and Lorena.
Appearance:
Arthur Curry is a rather fetching half-Atlantean and looks pretty much like a regular human being. Canon on Atlantean physiology is sometimes contradictory (comics) but to simplify things, I'm going with the assumption that they have gills, located behind the ears on the neck. These are usually barely, if at all visible. He stands at about 6'1", and weighs roughly 325 pounds because, while he might not look any heavier than other men of his build, his muscles are more dense from adapting to the pressures of the ocean. His hair is blond, neatly trimmed at this point instead of the flowing mane he used to have, and his eyes are described as "sea blue". He used to have a prosthetic hand but then he was a zombie and then he got better. Sometimes he grows a fabulous beard.
He's not shown in civvies very often. Usually he just wears his costume everywhere - an orange scaled shirt, green pants made out of a slick material, green gloves with stylized tops that resemble fins, and a gold belt with a buckle in the shape of the glyph that stands for Atlantis.
Picture
Abilities:
An important thing to note is that Arthur doesn't necessarily feel that he's a supwerpowered individual, though most people tend to classify him as one. He's always been able to do the things he can do though, so it doesn't feel like 'super' to him. Most of his actual powers relate to his half-Atleantean biology, which is fairly different from a human's. Atlanteans are built to survive the depths of the ocean, and as such, Arthur can breathe underwater indefinitely through a set of gills located on his neck beneath his ears. These flaps usually lie flat against his skin and are barely, if at all, visible. Atlanteans can breathe air for short periods of time, but because Arthur is only half-Atlantean, he can survive on land for much longer, though not indefinitely because his body requires much more hydration than a human's. He also takes in minerals and trace elements from seawater, so he tends to feel a little anemic if he has to survive on freshwater, though it is possible.
Another adaptation due to his Atlantean biology is that his muscle tissue is much more dense; his body is meant to move quickly and agilely in the ridiculous pressures of the ocean depths (it's assumed he can travel about as deep as 36,000 feet below). Because of this, he's quite fast, and superhumanly strong and resilient on land. According to the wiki, he's about 150 times stronger than a regular human being, though he's not often thought of as super strong or durable because he's usually compared to people like Superman and Wonder Woman. His thick skin difficult to cut and small bullets won't pierce his him, though he's still vulnerable to larger rounds. His senses are heightened as well, most notably his sight and hearing, because his eyes are adapted to see in the dark depths of the sea and his ears are adapted to hear sound traveling through water. He used to tend to mumble when he first started going up on land again after spending so much time in the water, because sound travels more easily through water than air.
His last power is somewhat unique to him (though a few others have shown similar abilities), a sort of genetic 'anomaly' from being descended from the ancient Prince Kordax: Arthur has a low degree of telepathy, one specifically suited for speaking with marine life, though he's been able to put it to other uses as well. He can communicate mentally with other telepaths, most often J'onn J'onzz, and to a low degree (often in conjunction with another telepath) he can do mind probes and mental attacks. Primarily his telepathy is used to communicate with sealife, though; the more evolved the creature, the easier it is for him to communicate with them. Dolphins and whales, for example, are extremely smart and he can have full blown conversations with them, but things like plankton and barnacles, he might just be able to get across the gist of what he wants them to do, which is more difficult, but he's had lots of practice. A misconception about Aquaman is that he commands ocean creatures to do his bidding, when that isn't true at all. He spent his youth traveling the sea and gaining the respect of his fellow marine life. He requests they help him, and they often do because they respect him and consider him their king and protector. Another thing he's used his telepathy to do is find the evolved-from-marine-life parts of another creature or person's brain and manipulate it, such as the time he located the basal ganglia of a White Martian's brain and induced a seizure.
His learned skillset goes along with his Atlantean heritage and his role as monarch. He's an expert swimmer, and his speed in the water is pretty much unparalleled in DC - according to the wiki, his regular speed is about 100mph in the water, though he can push himself much faster if he wants to. He's also a fairly advanced combatant and tactician, especially military tactics. He commanded the Atlantean Navy for a while, and he also wouldn't be on the Justice League if he didn't know how to fight. To round out his skillset, he's an accomplished leader and speaker from being ruler of Atlantis and the seven seas, and a diplomat, though he's... not so good at democracy. Being a King and all. Also don't give him diplomatic immunity, he tends to use it to do whatever he needs to do even if it isn't exactly okay.
Inventory:
- The clothes on his back (his costume described under appearance)
- JLA signal device in his belt which probably won't work
Suite: Water Sector, for obvious reasons. He'd be much more at home with all the water sources, and he'd be able to travel faster through the canals than anywhere else. He wouldn't care that the Water Sector is a poorer district, really. 'Closer to the people' and all that. Two floors would be nice but he's not picky if he can have a private pool.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person:
Nothing on Tu Vishan is quite the same as Earth, but this, Arthur has found, is close enough to count. He leans on the deck railing of the small fishing boat, and breathes in the briny air off the choppy mid-morning waves. No matter what dimension, the sea always seems to be constant in some ways, at least the ways that matter most. The smell of salt, the spray on his face and bare chest, the ambient sounds of an ocean teeming with life - it's as close to home as he ever gets here, and when he closes his eyes he can transport himself back to his youth, to the coast of Maine, for just a few snatched moments. He can remember going out with his father on their small boat, bringing in the crab pots for dinner that night or casting their lines for something more substantial; his father would teach him about the ocean then, about the marine life they pulled in, about the dolphins they would sometimes see playing on the horizon, about the largest denizen of the ocean to the smallest. They were still learning about Arthur's strange abilities then; his father taught him about the circle of life, about fishing for necessity, about being humane.
The kedan were skeptical when he joined the little fishing crew to get his required work out of the way. 'The man who speaks to fish is a fisherman?' They don't understand, but he's used to that by now. It's too much of a pain to explain that every predator species hunts or fishes, and that he understands the necessity. He would no more tell a shark to eat kelp than he would tell a human or kedan to never cast a line in the ocean. Even an Atlantean's diet consists of fish, among other things. Still, he never uses his gift to make the fishing more profitable. Every creature deserves a chance.
A voice pulls him back to the here and now - the captain of the little trawler, an older kedan fond of blueish skin and a scraggly beard, barking, "You! The net is snagged, go below and check it out." Arthur can't quite stop the wry smile that touches at his lips; even fishing boat captains here are similar in some ways, he thinks, remembering the old lighthouse keeper McCaffrey.
Arthur was once a king, but he doesn't say a word about the commanding tone. A man's boat is his castle, and he is but a guest on this one, hired help. He dives overboard without a thought, seawater flowing over his gills. Nothing quite beats this feeling; air is so much less rich, and freshwater isn't as refreshing. He soaks up the trace minerals and salt of the sea and for just a moment, enjoys being alive again.
At least until a cold, panicked sense of fear touches at his brain, and he frowns, diving deeper, eyes automatically adjusting to the dimmer light this far down. The fisherman's net, caught on a large, jagged patch of rock, and inside it... The creature doesn't look like any dolphin he's ever seen, there are marked differences in physiology, and her speech is difficult to understand - one thing he's found in his time here is that the marine life is different, and it's like learning new dialects of a language he's known his whole life - but he recognizes the creature as distantly related to a dolphin, and about on the same level intelligence-wise. She's caught in the net with the usual catch of fish, thrashing, dangerously close to the sharp edges of rock.
Arthur's never had to think too hard about situations like these. There is a sharp knife in his belt, for cutting tangled lines, and he pulls it out in one hand as he swims closer to the mess of net. The dolphin-like creature lets out a series of squeals and clicks that sound somewhat like words to Arthur, but not quite. Still, he knows fear, and he mentally projects calm instead. "Easy. I'm here to help. I'm a friend." There's still a communications barrier between him and this sea, but as he starts to saw through the net, jaggedly and roughly to make it look as if it's been shredded by the rocks, the creature stills and becomes curious. When the hole is large enough, she slips out, along with most of the catch, but Arthur isn't worried. The fishermen will cast another net.
"Who are you?" The dolphin-like being says, her 'voice' watery and a little garbled in his head.
"They call me the Swimmer. I am a friend."
He was once a king.
Network:
[The video starts up on a blond man sitting at the console in his suite, a small, glass bowl of sea water containing a small, brightly-finned but unusual-looking fish in front of him. For now, though, his attention is on the screen, his expression thoughtful, eyebrows creased.] I have been told when I was unceremoniously fished from the sea that I have been brought to a place between life, death, and dreaming.
I'm not sure how this is possible. I have been dead before, and I have- straddled the line between life and death unwillingly. It was not this.
[He glances down at the fish suddenly, some other emotion crossing his face briefly. Something bittersweet.] And I can't be dreaming. Things would be much different. [It's stating the obvious, of course, but there's a weight to his voice when he says it. He's obviously distrustful of this entire situation, and why wouldn't he be? Other dimensions are standard fare in his life.]
[He glances up again, eyes narrowed slightly, taking on a more commanding tone.] I am Arthur Curry of Atlantis, and if there is anyone here I'd actually wish to speak to, contact me. You'll know who you are. [He seems to have said all he intends to say, and as he starts to close down the console, he leans down to look eye to eye with the little fish in the bowl, murmuring something to it.]