Carol Fanning
Role: Protagonist
Age: 22
Sex: Female
Affiliations: Paramystic. The Angel.
Powers: Pink Aether. Aether projection and manipulation, enchanted singing, hypnosis, item enchantment, light manipulation, invulnerable skeleton, iron hard skin, mind reading, future vision.
History:
Carol was born in rural Minnesota to a prestigious family of liminals. Her family on her mother's side prided themselves in their pink aether. The rarest variant of them all. Her mother's sole reason for marrying her father was to have a child certain to possess the power. This led to a rather unstable marriage, with her manipulating her husband to do her bidding.
Carol's mother was always horribly controlling. She never let her have any freedom during her childhood. No rights to make her own choices and molded into the perfect trophy child to pride over, Carol grew up meek, submissive, and nearly emotionless.
When training in her abilities, her mother constantly implanted the need for flawlessness and perfection in her mind. She trained her to develop strong skin that could not age or be scratched. She also taught her how to enchant items, use hypnosis to control people's minds, read minds, and see into the future. These were all skills her mother knew, and she refused Carol from using these powers without permission.
However, one day, out of sheer curiosity, she read her father's mind and saw how miserable he was under her mother's manipulation. Concerned, she confronted him about it, and her father told her the whole truth. That her mother put on an act of kindness before they got married and only revealed her true self when she trapped him in a marriage. Her father then urged her to regain her free will and find a way to inspire herself to live free and make her own choices like other people her age.
Confused, she asked her mother if other people like her are allowed to make more decisions than her. Her mother lied and said this was how all parents should treat their children, and that children were all born to serve their family and bloodline.
Carol was not convinced, and she bided her time, enduring her mother's cruel control tactics, waiting for a chance at hope for freedom. At the age of 16, she got her chance when her father convinced her mom to let her have a computer and cell phone. With these devices, she connected to the internet and quickly discovered social media, manga, and anime.
These three things opened up her world and gave her the inspiration she needed to have free will. She began making videos on YouTube of her singing anime theme songs. To her surprise and delight, people loved her singing. Empowered by the inspiring stories of anime and support from social media, Carol aspired to become a singer and social media star.
Sadly, it did not take long for Carol's mother to discover her actions. Enraged but not deterred, she attempted to hypnotize her and make her forget all anime and social media had done for her. Carol fought back, however, and broke free, severely wounding her mother in the process.
The rest of her mother's family, out of rage their matriarch was defied, banished Carol and her father from the family. They were both more than happy to leave.
Carol and her father moved to DC. They quickly got jobs and bought a decent home for themselves. All the while Carol continued to grow her following on social media for her talent, love of anime, and beauty. She also used her powers for good every chance she got. At one point she shielded bystanders in the middle of a shooting, her iron hard skin only bruising with every shot.
It did not take long for her strength and following to be noticed by social worker and legendary liminal Johnny Smith. After she graduated from college, Johnny offered her to join a fast-growing group of liminals determined to do good with their powers and the strength of internet fame and news.
Though she was hesitant at first, when she discovered the leader of the group, Vivian, was in fact one of her earliest supporters, she agreed to join.
She is now the protective angel and enchanted singer of the group.
Powers and abilities:
Carol's aether variant is the rarest of them all: Pink. Though it is the rarest, it is not the strongest. Despite that, her ability to wield the magical energy is almost as strong as Vivian's. Along with the basic attacks of orbs, beams, and homing blasts, she can manipulate the energy to various shapes for custom attacks. Her signature aether attack takes the form of fan shaped blades that can cut deep and blow opponents back.
Her most famous ability is her magical singing voice. Only effective on those with cold, malicious hearts, she can lull all those in earshot of her singing to sleep, put them in a thoughtless trance, and soothe their volatile negative emotions. She has been known to do this in the middle of raging riots, calming the violence and bringing peace.
Since she was little, Carol was taught the ability to use hypnosis to invade and control people's minds. Her mother did this to break people's wills and follow her every order without defiance. Carol, however, had long lost this malicious ability ever since she defeated her mother. Instead, she uses her hypnosis to help people recall forgotten thoughts, calm wild emotions, and mentally immobilize hostile foes. In order to connect with people's minds, she needs to make direct eye contact with them for a full five seconds and count down from five. It's a sort of spell of sorts she created herself very different from her mother's.
Like Vivian, Carol has the power to enchant objects and give them special abilities. Her powers of enchantment are not as strong as Vivian's but still better than most liminals.
One ability her aether possesses that is different from most others is the ability to produce light. She can make her aether glow in blinding flashes to disorient and distract opponents. She can also dim artificial lighting, but not sunlight.
The very first ability Carol ever learned is a near impenetrable defense. With iron hard skin and an indestructible skeleton, she is nearly immune to blunt force attacks. However, she is vulnerable to elements like fire, ice, and electricity.
The last two of her first learned abilities are mind reading and clairvoyant future visions. In order to read a person's thoughts, she needs to concentrate hard on an individual. It is easier to read them if she is touching the person's head. She can also see into the future, but this power is hard to control. She often has visions randomly without warning, but mostly when she is worried about something specific. Visions are often triggered by looking at a person, place, or thing for an extended amount of time and thinking hard about it.
Personality:
Due to her mother's overbearing control and manipulation, Carol is generally very calm and emotionless. She rarely expresses herself very strongly and keeps her composure at all times unless something seriously effects her. She also rarely smiles.
Despite her detached, impassive personality, she truly does have a kind heart deep down, even though she does not show it often. Even to her friends. She does not like to show any softness to even those close to her.
She is not afraid to be honest in her thoughts, even if it means being a little hurtful.
Extras:
Carol's pink hair is a sign of her pink aether. It is slightly black on the ends due to her defiance towards her mother.
Her favorite foods are oranges, lemons, and limes.
She is heterosexual.