Carina Amari

Carina Elise Amari

Carina means "Darling" in Italian, so her name also serves as a pet name, usually stylized as "mi carina"

33 (appears in her late 20s)

She/Her

Avalanche Lead Singer / Luciano's Familiar & Bodyguard

Esper (Turned)

June 10th

Elize Ryd

5 FT 6 IN

Purely athletic curves. She exercises regularly, doing yoga and cardio almost every day. She prefers bodyweight workouts to using equipment. She has to keep herself in shape, both for the marathon performances on stage in addition to her… secondary job.

Blue-Grey

Dark Brown

Long & Straight

Good question!

Both ears

She tends to favor dark colors in her wardrobe, blacks and reds and silvers, but she is just as comfortable in a pair of jeans and sneakers as she is in knee-high leather stilettos and a miniskirt. Most of the time off stage her wardrobe is plain and screams working middle class, but it's because she tries hard to blend in as 'normal'. On stage is an entirely different matter.

She has faint, soft scarring across various limbs and body parts that are all that remains of the car accident in her childhood.

Carina's most obvious feature is her striking blue eyes. It's the one thing she inherited from her father and his Swedish ancestry, bright blue-grey eyes that shift depending on the lighting. The rest she inherited purely from her mother's Italian family.

Her personality has been compared to a volcano. Bombastic. Passionate. Giving herself into whatever project is put before her. Taking care of her family. Blood and duty have been ingrained into her since childhood, and she has always seen herself as a protector. She finds herself with restless energy quite often, and pours the energy into her music and her performances to help her cope. She is the grounded, practical one in her day to day life, a motherly type who reminds you to eat and drink more water and also do you want to go for a run with her?

Her abilities are closely tied to her emotions, and the personal connections she makes with others. While she is a social butterfly and more of an extrovert than an introvert, she doesn't like to let people in. 'Outsiders' have a hard time breaking through carefully constructed social walls, like the degree of separation between 'fan' and 'friend', but those who can find a loyal friend and a connection through her Esper abilities they may not want. In practice, not many people like that their physical and emotional wellbeing can be laid bare with only a look, no matter what kind of friendship they may have.

Carina is bisexual, and has been with men and women equally.

Carina is a firecracker! Or at least, that is the picture she puts out for the fans. High energy, social, frequent (but responsible!) party girl. She usually dominates in a conversation and is almost motherly in a way, making each person she talks to feel as if she is personally invested in their lives. It's a front, to keep fans and distant friends from probing too deep into her own personal life. She doesn't like to talk about herself beyond the superficial (her own passions and hobbies like her music, exercising, fashion, etc.). Deep heart to hearts are rare, on her end. She's more of a listener than a talker on the personal stuff.

Enemies stem more from personality conflicts, especially when two dominant personalities clash in the wrong ways. Also, haters who take their hatred for her music, her band, or herself way too far (it's just music, no need for such vehemence). Others might stem from the family connection - she has does her best to keep herself disassociated from the Mafia when it comes to her public life, but she did keep the Amari name and did not choose a stage name. For those who might have vendettas with her family, the connection to her brother or her grandfather can be obvious.

Carina has never had a steady relationship that lasted for more than a few months at a time. She is the type to go into a relationship with a fiery passion, only to grow bored when the flame dies after the first few months. She chases romantic highs, never satisfied. She is also attracted to people who are usually considered toxic; the broken who need fixed, the opposite of what is good and healthy in a relationship. She builds them up, puts them back on their feet, and then moves on to the next... which can make her just as toxic.

She was never particularly attached to any of them. Remained good friends with a few, but the majority she never really spoke to again.

Carina is a singer/songwriter first and foremost, and most of the lyrics for Avalanche's songs have been written by her with input from her other band mates and the other two vocalists. Thanks to the musical background of her father's family, she also fancies herself a bit of a composer and likes to work on musical arrangements for the music the band performs.

Carina can also play the guitar, piano, and the violin, although she's rusty on the violin.

She is classically trained as a singer which lends towards her clean vocals in Avalanche.

Retro video games are Carina's latest thing, specifically old handheld Nintendo systems. She also loves to watch Twitch streamers.

Carina is not a fighter, and therefore doesn't have a favorite weapon, per se. However, she is well versed in self defense - as her brother's protector and also as Papi's favorite granddaughter, she was expected to be able to hold her own if she was ever put into a position where she needed to protect herself or her brother with no immediate help around. She can defend herself hand-to-hand and can shoot and wield a weapon if needed.

Rotti "Papi" Amari - Patriarch of the Amari family, Godfather in the Italian Mafia, Carina's grandfather

Giulia "Lia" Amari - Mother, Papi's daughter

Luciano "Luc" Amari - Younger Brother, Papi's Heir and future Godfather

Hugo Nilsson - Father

Agnes Nilsson - Grandmother, father's mother

Carina is from the Amari crime family - a formerly prolific Italian mafia family who had total control of their burrough in New York City. They had a living complex that stretched for nearly a whole city block, each business and apartment building and house owned by a family member, worked in and lived in by the family.

Practically the entirety of the Amari crime family was obliterated in the attack that killed her Papi and her uncle, the Acting Boss. There is likely a handful that remain, distant relatives scattered around, but too few to maintain the family's stranglehold on their portion of the city. The family has since been replaced by others.

Carina had plenty of pets growing up, dogs, cats, rodents, birds, and others. She hasn't had any pets of her own since her last cat passed away about 5 years ago.

Amari is a common enough family name, especially from their burrough in New York City, that Carina has never felt the need to hide her identity behind a stage name or a pseudonym. The only people who have ever made a connection between Avalanche lead singer and the Amari crime family, are those who are intimately familiar with the criminal underground.

June 10th

Carina was born in New York City and New York is her hometown.

Snow Haven, Alaska

Carina is fluent in English, Italian, and Swedish - she was raised trilingually between the three.

Carina is a turned Esper, lead vocalist of the power metal band Avalanche, and... the granddaughter of the Italian Mafia Godfather for the Amari crime family, and the sister of its eventual heir, Luciano Amari. Carina herself is not really involved in the dealings of her family and has kept her life mostly separate. She acts as an advisor and bodyguard for her brother, and the record label Avalanche is signed to is a front for the Mafia.

She has performed with Avalanche since their debut album in 2011, and the band took the metal world by storm. She has been constantly active in the public eye up until August 2017, when she vanished without a word to friends or her band. In actuality, the Amari crime family was attacked, and Carina and her brother escaped as the only known survivors. They remain media-dark and no-contact until she can figure out who took out their family and whether they are a threat to her loved ones.

Carina is the favorite granddaughter of Rotti Amari, a man she affectionately calls 'Papi'. Her mother, Giulia, is Rotti's oldest daughter, and Carina is the favorite despite the shaky relationship between her father, Hugo, and her Papi. See, Papi is a traditional Italian grandfather. Blood is important. So when Giulia met and fell in love with a Swedish man without a drop of Italian in his ancestry, things got a little… heated, between the Italian patriarch and the Swedish upstart who intended to sweep his oldest daughter away.

And Papi was not a man to be fooled with. He was a kingpin in New York City, where he was a third generation Italian immigrant and a third generation member of the Cosa Nostra, the Amari family being underboss to the Gambino crime family for decades. He was raised to Godfather in their neighborhood after the death of the family's boss only years before Carina was born. They did not need an outsider within their ranks. But Giulia insisted, and stubbornly continued to see Hugo despite the risks. They did not marry however, and when Carina was eventually born, she took the family Amari name and not that of her father's.

Carina was born a Human. She was raised surrounded by the ideals of family and blood, from both her mother's side and her father's side. Her younger brother Luciano, affectionately called Luc or Luci, would follow some handful of years later. She loved him fiercely from the moment she saw him. She didn't understand the rumors that they had different fathers, and Luc was a full blood Italian and could continue in the family. Carina vowed to always be there for him, even after he was named as Papi's eventual heir, to succeed their uncle should Papi or their uncle die.

Hugo returned to Sweden when Carina was five, and from there her parents split custody. Carina spent her summers and every other holiday in Sweden with her father and grandmother, Agnes. The Nilssons were a family of musicians, and from an early age fed her love of music and performing. At home with Papi, she was expected to continue her studies and look after Luc, but summers with Mormor Agnes were all about piano lessons, guitar lessons, dance, voice coaches, anything her heart desired.

When she was 13, she entered a vocal competition hosted locally and actually won. The grand prize was a recording contract, but in Sweden she had to be at least 15 to be able to sign it, and she was too young. At that point, her love of music became known to her Italian family, and she returned home at the end of that summer to find she had Papi's blessing to continue her music studies. The family saw it as more than Papi catering to his favorite granddaughter; if Carina's career took off, they would have a convenient music label to funnel money into. She graduated from middle school and entered a performing arts high school to continue her studies.

Her world shattered when she was 15. Her father had flown in from Malmo to attend a piano concert at school. She, Luc, Hugo, and Giulia were in a car travelling when something… happened. To this day, Carina is not sure what. An explosion? A car crash? An attack, targeting the children of the Amari family Godfather? One moment they were in a car, the next they weren't. She was on the ground. There was fire. She couldn't see her parents. Luc lay not far from her, bleeding heavily, screaming. There was so much blood. She crawled to him, pulled him into her arms, and put her hand over one of the wounds in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding. And… it did. A heat surged up her arm, sparks burst in her eyes, and suddenly the bleeding had stopped. Luc had stopped screaming. Carina's head felt as if it would explode.

Whatever had happened, Carina and Luc were the only survivors. Her parents were dead. The children both sustained heavy injuries, broken limbs, head injuries severe enough to cause potential for minor brain damage. They had survived, but… Luc was never quite the same again. And a quiet doctor would explain to Carina that hers had possibly been the cause of her… 'transformation'. That turned Espers like her needed a trigger, and that could have been it. She... was no longer Human.

The supernatural Underground had always been known to Carina. But it had been known the same way the Cosa Nostra was. It was a thing you knew, but never talked about. Knew enough to not live in ignorance, but only enough to still be able to claim plausible deniability if confronted. Now, she was a part of that world, as surely as she was now a part of the mafia.

Papi searched for years to find his daughter's killer, a reason for her death, but if anything was discovered, Carina was never told. To the public, it was labelled an accident. It tooks years for the trauma of the accident to heal. Carina was almost 20 before she was able to finish school, because she never left Luc's side. He had issues that now ran deeper than the physical, worse than her own, and all her Esper abilities that began to manifest were centered around him. Healing touch, to calm his bouts of pain and rage and fix what he would do to himself and to others; aura reading, to sense when a PTSD attack was incoming, or when his anger was about to explode; remote viewing, developed so he was never completely out of her sight.

It was clear to her as they grew older that Luc should never hold a position in the Mafia. He was a danger to himself, and to others. The family brought out the worst in him, and the accident had only made it ten times worse. But he had been groomed from an infant to take on the role of boss someday. She could not convince him or Papi to have him come to Sweden with her for a long overdue visit to Mormor Agnes.

So finally, she got fed up, and left. She needed a break from her brother and the family. She needed her Mormor, and her music friends in Sweden. So she packed her things, told Luc she would come at a moment's call if he needed her, and moved in with Agnes in Sweden. Her early 20s were spent lost in the music scene, where she performed with random bands and made new friends, until she and some of her friends came together to form a band called Avalanche, under the genre of power metal.

When they were set to release their first album together, they initially tried to sign to the Universal record label, UMG - but true to Papi's promise, the Amari crime family formed a 'new' record label to jumpstart Carina's career, and suddenly Avalanche received outpourings of money from the family. Carina hated it, but there was no choice. She kept the mafia connection carefully hidden from her new music family.

Avalanche exploded onto the heavy metal/power metal scene. Carina suddenly found herself the center of attention in her music world, a first, and performed frequently with other bands in music festivals, on tours, recorded singles. There were occasions when she would have to drop everything and return home to Luc as he settled in as a Caporegime for Papi, but he actually seemed to be doing okay in his role, and she didn't have to check up on him more frequently than normal. She even decided to return back to live in the United States after a time, though far from New York City. Years passed. Life was good, for the first time since her parents died.

And then… another disaster. This time, a verifiable attack against the family. Carina had just returned home for a quick visit with Luc and Papi, when suddenly their home was attacked. It seemed intended to be a completely assassination of anyone in the building. In the ensuing chaos to escape, Carina and Luc watched their uncle, the underboss, gunned down, and while bodyguards hustled the two in a different direction to their grandfather, she watched him fall, too. She wholeheartedly believed she just watched her grandfather die, but could not stop to help him. Luc was her priority.

They escaped, but barely. By right, Luc was now the reigning Godfather of the Amari crime family, and as soon as the shock and the dust had settled he fully intended to take his title. It was all Carina could do to stop him. They had no men, no money. Right now, all they had going for them was that whoever attacked their family believed them all dead. She begged him to let it go until they could get to a safe place, and get some details. Right now, the Feds and the other crime families would be all over the place, if it wasn't one of them that caused it. They had to lay low.

So Carina and Luc… disappeared. Went underground in the Underground. For the safety of the remaining family, her bandmates, and her friends, Carina had to go completely media-dark and no-contact. Not even her music world was safe from whoever caused this, since the label who funded them was a front for the family. There was no way she could risk their attackers discovering they were alive and use that against their friends and loved ones.

Through the months of their laying low, Carina was told that Snow Haven, Alaska was a place people went to when they needed to hide, and a place where a person could find information. So she dragged Luc with her to Snow Haven, a world away from New York City, in the hopes of getting answers… or convincing Luc to leave the mafia life behind completely.

Carina is an Esper, turned after a traumatic childhood accident when she was 15.

The supernatural Underground had always been known to Carina. But it had been known the same way the Cosa Nostra was. It was a thing you knew, but never talked about. Knew enough to not live in ignorance, but only enough to still be able to claim plausible deniability if confronted. Since her turning, she has been knee-deep in the magic underground.

Carina is not a powerful Esper due to being turned in her mid-teens. Her abilities are produced only with concentration and focus, when she wants to use them, and then under moments of strong emotion, heightened stress, or anxiety attacks. She practices with her main abilities often, treating them like physical exercises that will grow in strength over time, but they can cause exhaustion and migraines when overextended due to a head injury received during her turning.

Therapeutic Touch - Carina's main ability as an Esper is Therapeutic or Healing Touch. She uses the natural energies found within the body to promote rapid healing, reduce pain, and help with anxiety and stress. She does not need to touch someone in order to do this, but it is a much greater mental drain if she can't have contact. Her maximum range is 9 feet (3 meters) from the person in question.

Aura Reading - due to her main ability, Carina also has the ability to sense auras and energies from a person. As a passive ability, it is very weak; she requires concentration and focus to make it an active ability and be able to read the aura clearly. Otherwise, it is only faint flickers and the occasional sensation surges from strong, outward projecting energies.

Remote Viewing - an ability that developed in her teens, if Carina has a strong emotional attachment to a person, she can use a variation of second sight to remotely view that person's location, no matter where they are. It is more of a sensation of where they are in the world than an actual vision, and combined with the aura reading, can tell how the person is doing.

She also has weak, undeveloped abilities in the more common Esper magicks: telekinesis, pyrokinesis, telepathy. They can flare in moments of high stress or extreme emotion, but otherwise they are unused and undeveloped to the point of having them be negligent.

Being an Esper, Carina has no other physical forms. Thanks to her weak power level as an Esper, her handle on illusions is also pretty negligible. Although it could be said that if under high stress she could manage something for a short time.

Luc has attempted to make her a few things over the years, wards and power amplifiers mainly, with a stab or two at an ability blocker for when other people's auras get to be too much, but Carina doesn't like to wear them because they never feel quite... right.