#my fandom experience. people generally know how to use tags and while the sudden influx of x reader stuff for every single character isnt

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

y'know, I've been seeing a lot more posts talking about how fanfic, specifically, puts characters into boxes and takes away the nuance of them, and while I think that's an important discussion to have, I also find it quite perplexing? Like, these posts seem to come from people who don't even, or maybe very rarely, consume fics in the first place, and I say that because, if you do consume fics semi-regularly, you kind of learn? how to gage what the stories and characterisation are going to be like based on the tags and summary? Sometimes, you do have to step into the fic to figure it out, but it hardly takes very long to realise if it gels with you or not. Idk, it's not anything serious or important, but it does give me... "girl, what were you doing at the devil's sacrament" vibes, you know?

[lightns881]

DTeam Tumblr Demographics Survey Results (Part 1):

The Gifted Child Syndrome is Real with this One...

*Rubs hands together in preparation for some juicy data and in-depth analysis of the typical member of the DTeam Tumblr community*

Ooooooooh boy! Here we go!

I want to start of by thanking you guys for over 400 responses to the demographics survey! Y’all have no idea how much I appreciate it! We have so much to cover, so I’m going to divide up different sections of the survey into several posts to make it more digestable and do justice to each topic explored in the form! We’re going to start of with, you guessed it, personality types!

Strap yourself in because we’re about to thoroughly dissect your sub-conscious innerworkings and find out how the typical DTeam Tumblr Fan thinks! (And judging by the majority personality types, you guys will probably enjoy it)

The Delicious Data

From the 449 responses we received, this is a pie chart displaying the personality types of all respondents.

Image Description: INFP (40.5%), INTP (15.1%), INFJ (8.9%), INTJ (8.9%), ISFP (6.9%), ENFP (4.2%), ISTP (4.0%), ENTP (3.8%), ESFP (1.6%), ISFJ (1.6%), ENTJ (1.3%), ENFJ (1.3%), ISTJ (1.1%), ESTP (0.4%), ESFJ (0.2%), ESTJ (0%)

In comparison, this is a pie chart displaying the personality type percentages of the population as a whole according to the MBTI website.

Image Description: ISTP (14%), ESFJ (12%), ISTJ (12%), ISFP (9%), ESTJ (9%), ESFP (8%) ENFP (8%), ISTP (5%), INFP (4%), ESTP (4%), INTP (3%), ENTP (3%), ENFJ (2%), INTJ (2%), ENTJ (2%), INFJ (1%)

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sensing a tiny difference here... Oh, right!

INxx’s on the Loose!

It’s funny. When I first found one of the 18+ DTeam fan servers through Tumblr, I asked everyone what their personality type was. I was pleasantly surprised when a lot of them told me they were INFPs like me!

It actually reminded me of MatPat’s (Game Theory) survey for one of his Life Is Strange theories that found the majority personality there was also INFP...

Funny enough, can you guess what the second leading personality on that survey was? The third? The fourth?

You probably guessed it right. MatPat found that out of the fans who responded, the leading majority was INFP while INTPs came in second, INFJs came in third, and INTJs came in fourth. The exact order for the personality types in DTeam Tumblr.

But why is it that some of the rarer personalities of the world are dominating DTeam Tumblr or Game Theory’s fanbase? What is it about these communities that attract the rare introverted Intuitive Perceivers (INxP) and Intuitive Judgers (INxJ) of the world like magnets?

The Gifted Kid Syndrome

To answer this question, first we have to examine our leading personalities. As we can see from the data, INFPs and INTPs make up 55.6% and INFJs and INTJs make up 17.8% of the total respondents. That’s nearly 3/4′s of the DTeam Tumblr population made up of INxx types!

Now, here’s me calling y’all out.

A lot of you probably relate to the quiet kid sitting at the back of the classroom who’s put into some type of TAG, gifted program, or some authority figure has probably called you smart and/or “gifted” at some point in your life. Academics probably came easy to you at one point, maybe they still do.

You’ve probably felt your chest swell up at the shower of compliments about your intelligence and at another... you’ve probably felt like people put you in a pedestal and overrate you so you’re stuck with this inherent fear of failure, and it causes you to completely shut down when the things that came easy to you at one point no longer do so. 

It’s gifted kid syndrome hitting you like a brick to the face. And if it hasn’t yet, oh you’re in for a surprise, honey.

And I’m sure many of you have come across funny, relatable posts like this:

And you want to know why most of you relate?

Image Description: INTP, INTJ, INFP, anf INFJ’s rate the highest in a giftedness per MBTI Type chart

No. You’re not hallucinating. It’s not even a joke at this point. It feels true because it probably is true.

(Granted, the study that captured similar results to this graph is long lost to the internet, but the best source I found with it was a reddit post I will be citing in the reblog.)

Now, my next point is where we find a split.

INFPs and INTPs and their Need to Question Everything (even if it’s about one sentence [insert creator here] said that one time during a 4-hour long stream)

The strongest connection I found between the two leading personalities of DTeam Tumblr is they share Extraverted Intuiting (Ne) as their auxiliary cognitive function.

I’ll use a quote that explains Ne better than I could ever explain it in my own words:

“Extraverted intuition or Ne is very much focused on patterns and making connections from information they gather... Ne dominant users enjoy being able to explore things in a much more open manner, not wanting to feel closed off to the possibilities around them... They are also highly imaginative people, who enjoy being able to come up with unique hobbies and experiences... They are not afraid of imagining things which seem almost impossible to others... [For INFPs,] Ne is what creates this detailed and incredible thoughts process which keeps them busy for long periods of time.”

And another:

“Auxiliary Ne manifests in people constantly questioning the world around them, but unlike ENxPs, they can be more pick and choose about this. But generally, they don’t take people, things and events at face value.“

Now, think about the community you’re in right now. Think about the post you’re reading at the moment.

DTeam Tumblr is full of over-analysis posts, whether about Dream and George’s secret love for each other or about the inherent problems with Dream’s shipbait and gay jokes or theories about what’s going to happen next in the dream SMP lore and the dramatic betrayals and creator’s descend into madness and more theories about sexuality and charts depicting creator’s personalities and what they’d be likely to do in different scenarios and... ooof, I’m out of breath here. You get my point.

DTeam Tumblr is literally a group of ex-gifted or gifted introverted people who love to read or write analysis, theory, and discussion posts about sweaty Minecraft Youtubers because they’re probably too overwhelmed by real life and find joy in obsessing over “dumb” things.

That’s it. That’s literally the post. I might as well end there.

But I won’t. 

Because obsessions is exactly what I want to focus on next.

The Inherent Nature of the INFP and their “Micro-Obsessions”

This is me having a one-to-one conversation with all my INFPs reading this.

Do you sometimes just set your mind on a goal--like, let’s say, writing a book--and you spend so much time obsessing over it to the point where you burn out and suddenly it never sees the light of day because you move onto your next goal or obsession because now you’re getting ready to launch your freelance website so you can start a business on [insert new hobby here]?

Or do you just suddenly find a fandom or a show or a channel you really enjoy and you spend the next few months doing nothing but engaging with it and reading fanfiction and drawing fan art or making dumb analysis posts on your main Tumblr account where suddenly you get an influx of followers from that community and now people are expecting you to just post about MCYT!?

Oh, sorry, I got a little carried away at the end there...

Anyhow, my point is, do you ever develop an obsession over something all the sudden only for it to just disappear when you find something new or just fall into the deep crevices of your mind only for it to maybe reemerge a few years later after you get a deep sense of nostalgia remembering it?

I call them micro-obsessions. And I recently found out, I’m not the only one who does this!

Here’s another quote for you: 

“According to Carl Jung’s theory of cognitive functions, when an INFP makes a decision, Ne comes in second to another process known as Introverted Feeling (Fi). Fi does not use logic to make a decision. It uses how we feel about the decision according to our values. In other words, it asks, “Which choice feels right for me?”

Ne, on the other hand, craves new ideas and experiences to explore, which causes INFPs to always be on the lookout for something novel.

Unfortunately, INFPs can get stuck in a loop, going back and forth between their Ne and Fi. They search to understand their values by constantly trying new things. They ask themselves, “Does this feel right?” then throw it over their shoulder as they move on to something else.”

So, you’re probably asking right about now, Light, how the heck does any of this have anything to do with the Dream Team and MCYT!?

Well, my friend, it has EVERYTHING to do with the Dream Team and MCYT and DTeam Tumblr as a whole.

Because INxx’s are predisposed to end up in places like this--fandoms on Tumblr, channels that speculate whether Mario is evil, watching dramatic Minecraft smp wars and elections as opposed to looking at the news that depicts Murphy’s Law as 2020′s new favorite epigram. 

The introvert in them causes them to prefer socializing in small communities online where they’re not forced to engage in conversations if they don’t want to or put into uncomfortable situations where they have to talk to that one friend of their friend who wants to make meaningless small chat.

Their Intuition causes them to wonder into places like Tumblr where they can engage in deep discussions about their newest obsessions, and they won’t be judged for writing a 500+ word post about why Dream’s shipbait tactics are a genius algorithm strat or simping over sweaty Minecraft boys.

DTeam Tumblr is a safe haven for INFPs and INTPs who might be placed in the “other” category or marked as weird for being interested in “childish” entertainment or being different from the general population overall, whether that’d be sexuality, point of view, age, gender, etc. A place where you can fully be yourself and not have to worry about disappointing people.

INFPs are predisposed for drowning themselves in their micro-obsessions to avoid all of the madness in the world--even if that means giggling like a little girl while reading memes about your favorite Minecraft YouTube creators.

That is a deep-dive into the mind of a typical DTeam Tumblr user. What do you think? Is it accurate at all? Is it completely off? Let me know in the comments!

And with that, I digress. I’m not sure whether I’ll be covering general demographics next week or diving into the topic of ships (could be a mix of both), but I will be posting about it eventually, so make sure to hit the follow if you got to the end of this post and enjoyed it or learned something new from it!

Friendly reminder that this survey and post is in no way supposed to be taken 100% seriously. These are just the ramblings of a math major INFP with too much time on her hands and way too big of an obsession for MCYT. My asks are always open for literally anything, whether if you want to ask me about this or any DNF related subject, my own opinions, or just criticize the whole of this post and tell me it’s complete trash! I’ll answer as long as it’s appropriate!

And, again, thank you everyone who filled out the survey. Without y’all, this post wouldn’t be possible. I really enjoyed writing it! Adios!

[olliya]

Readers‘ engagement on AO3

This time it will be less scientific, and more like me writing down my stream of consciousness. But the methodology was really straight-forward, so I think I can spare us the details, and I wanted to show you a detour I made trying to untangle the reasons behind certain fandom reactions. Join me for a trip?

AO3 is rather infamous for its lack of readers engagement (see all the initiatives supporting the commenting: @ao3commentoftheday​, @longlivefeedback​), at least among the fics and writers I am in contact with (and I do pay attention to the stats, you can believe me 😉 ). Nevertheless, some people feel very comfortable on this platform and for quite some time already I wondered what leads to such diametrically different writers’ experiences.

I started with analyzing Comments for Sakura’s ships. Since I did the same analysis for four Sakura’s ships: SasuSaku, NaruSaku, KakaSaku and MadaSaku on ff.net, we can have a direct comparison, especially as the time scope of existence Pairing Option and AO3 as a platform are very similar, and fic numbers are also comparable.

Very briefly: I sorted the fics into the following bins: >500 Comments, 201-500 Comments, 101-200 Comments, 51-100 Comments, 21-50 Comments, 11-20 Comments, 6-10 Comments, 2-5 Comments, 1 Comment, 0 Comments. All data are presented in percentage to allow for comparisons between the ships.

So let’s dive in:

On the first glance the graphs look peculiar: there is always sort of a double maximum for “0 Comments” and “2-5 Comments” divided by a minimum for “1 Comment”. But once we remember that the Comments on AO3 include also author’s responses the situation becomes clear: the majority of fics have 2 comments: namely 1 real Comment from a reader and one answer from the author.

To put this hypothesis into a test I checked how many fics have 2 Comments, and it is 316 out of 839 of SasuSaku fics in “2-5 Comments” bin, 84 out of 204 fics for NaruSaku and 104 out of 315 fic for KakaSaku – which gives always ca. one third of comments in the “2-5 Comments” bin.

At that point I deliberated for a while whether I should modify my bins to include “2 Comments” as a separate category, but I opted out of it for the sake of (future) comparisons with ff.net (and because I think by bins are very good, thank you).

As a side note: on the first 4 graphs we can also see that MadaSaku has a different distribution than all the other ships, but it is worth mentioning that it was also an outlier on ff.net. We will come to this later.

Peculiarity of distribution aside – the feedback on 3 main Sakura’s ships is consistently miserable. But, I reasoned, AO3 is famously M/M oriented so maybe the F/M audience is simply not there. Therefore, I set off to check all the Naruto ships in the order of their popularity, which btw is the following:

So, working down the list we get this:

And, WTF Naruto fandom? Most of the fics for hugely popular, established ships have no comments??!! Or one comment and an answer from the writer??!!

That was a really disappointing exercise…

Until I found that:

MadaTobi was the first ship that displayed a different pattern of readers interactions! It has a maximum in “21-50 Comments” per fic which is perfectly decent and corresponds well with the values for the ships I examined before on ff.net.

Encouraged by this discovery I dug further: (And tbh for a moment I thought I have here a “Madara-effect”, since both MadaTobi and MadaSaku displayed encouraging results 😉 )

But Madara-effect was not the case (HashiMada displays the same distribution as all the other ships) and further data were even more disappointing. (Let me repeat myself: WTF, Naruto fandom?!)

Until I found another instance of good readers’ participation:

KakaGai! So, at that point we had three ships that were behaving differently than the norm: MadaTobi, KakaGai and MadaSaku.

I looked further to see if I can find more examples of fandom positivity, but, spoiler alert – No. For the sake of appearances lets look at the data though. GaaLee is sort of a borderline case, so let’s flag it as “tentative” for now.

So, what could be the reason for such a drastically different behavior of distinctive pockets of the fandom? Over the course of last year, I was observing how MadaTobi was rapidly gaining popularity, so that hinted me to follow this line of reasoning.

For each ship, I broke down the fics numbers into years when they were published. I ignored all the fics published in 2020 (because the year has only started and including those data would skew the image). To be able to compare the ships (which vary widely in term of fic numbers) I calculated the percentages of fics published in each year. I.e if a ship had 100 fics published until December 2019 and 30 of them were published in 2019, then 2019 had 30% of all published fics. It was at that point irrelevant how many fics were published in 2020, they weren’t counted either the way. I included only data from 2011 on, because earlier ones are very fuzzy due to back-dating customs that were in fashion at that time (for explanations see here).

Let’s look at the data. Tadaaa!!!

Isn’t it absolutely beautiful?! (yes, I know!) Does it look like a tangle of knitting yarn? (yes, I know that as well!)

So, let me break it down for you:

See that, that general trend? This is the growth curve that most of the ships follow – pretty linear, with maybe a bit of acceleration in 2019.

Now let’s focus on outliers: (3 most popular ships: SasuNaru, KakaIru and SasuSaku are included for reference – they illustrate the general trend pretty well).

The ships that grew more than 30% in 2019 are: SasuHina, MadaTobi, GaaLee, KakaObi, HashiMada, KakaGai, MadaSaku and InoSaku. So, among those eight, 4 (3 obvious, and 1 tentative) are the ones which showed outstanding readers’ engagement!

 So, are newer, more energetic parts of fandom also the ones with best readers’ engagement? That would be a very optimistic message… But what about four ships that grew tremendously, but still show very poor readers behavior?

SasuHina is an easy case. If there exist a ship that has a captain, then it is this one. And the captain is @365daysofsasuhina​ who contributed staggering 438 fics (out of total of 966) to SasuHina! (Seriously, a round of standing ovation, because this is amount of dedication, work and talent that we can all only dream about. Talking about being a change you want to see!). And 90% of that contribution was done exactly in 2019, which explains the growth spurt of the ship. Sadly though, the audience response didn't keep up with the supply of new fics, therefore great many of them remain with very few comments.

So what about the remaining ones: KakaObi, HashiMadara and InoSaku?

Scrolling through the fic lists I noticed that great many of KakaObi fics are written in Chinese, so I decided to look into it deeper.

I analyzed the percentages of Chinese fics for all the examined ships (and percentages of English ones, just in case there was a ship with overrepresentation of some other language):

And we can see that both KakaObi and HashiMada have a very strong presence of the Chinese fics!

At that point I thought I have it, and proceeded to look at the distribution of Comments for Chinese KakaObi and HashiMada fics. And indeed, the reader’s engagement is sadly, almost nonexistent (165 out of 182 HashiMada fics and 478 out of 630 KakaObi fics have no comments at all). The reasons for that may be multiple; one that come to my mind is that the Chinese readers are still to follow their writers to AO3, or that the fics published recently are in reality not new (which for sure they are not, given the sheer amount of them) and received already their share of feedback on other platforms.

But, even if one subtracts the Chinese fics from the overall fics, the distribution remains the same! ☹ KakaObi and HashiMada still display the standard Comment distribution, despite having grown 45% and 41% in the last year!

It looks a bit better, but still follows standard, not very flattering trend of most of other ships.

So, then I thought that maybe if I subtract the Chinese fics the sudden growth in 2019 will disappear?

The answer is unfortunately, no. The growth spurt is still there, language independent.

So, at this point I don’t know... I am convinced that there is some effect coming from the influx of Chinese fics, but I cannot put my finger on it. (It is also a beautiful example of how correlation does not equal causation.) I also have no explanation for InoSaku behavior…

  Nevertheless, I think it is possible to draw some conclusions, and those conclusions are of vital importance for the health of fandom as it is currently on the move from ff.net to AO3. And I would hate to see the good habits that are in place among ff.net readers getting lost during this move!

It seems that the readers response is better in the pockets of fandom that experience rapid growth, which in itself is very positive news. But one would think that the entirety of Naruto fandom is experiencing such growth (as the fandom is moving to AO3, remember…?). Unfortunately, it isn’t the case.

There can be yet another factor in play: namely the question if the ship is well represented on ff.net, and most of the ships are. Let’s take a final look at our three outliers: MadaTobi, KakaGai and MadaSaku.

Quick look into ff.net (by quick look I mean: sum of two main Ship Names plus Pairing Option minus fics that were double-tagged) shows that there are 174 KakaGai fics, 132 MadaTobi fics and 230 MadaSaku fics (my carefully calculated MadaSaku fic number was 232 in December 2019, so now I believe this number will be slightly higher).

MadaTobi and KakaGai are definitely underrepresented on ff.net (though MadaSaku is not). Therefore, new fics are not being published on ff.net in parallel to AO3, but rather on AO3 exclusively. It is a speculation only, but maybe if readers are given a choice between commenting on ff.net and on AO3, they are choosing the older platform.  That would imply that the authors who make a complete move can still count on feedback, as with absence of ff.net-uploaded fics the readers would have only one place to comment on. At least that’s my hope…

And finally, dear Naruto fandom – step it up. Those numbers are a shame, and I know that people can do better than this.

[bucci-gang]

you asked for it kiddo... do you have any la squadra backstory hc's? (i saw it in one of your tags don't try and hide it 👀)

oHHHHH!!!!!! THANK YOU- this got pretty long jhhhhhggh,,,, and also!! some of these are very heavily influenced by stuff i’ve seen in the fandom, although a majority of these are my own!

(Content warning though, this gets pretty heavy- i’m going to be talking about death, miscarriages, illnesses, injury, neglect and csa in this one. Tagged and under a cut to be safe.)

RISOTTO NERO

No one would believe you if you told them, but Polpo is his father. If the eyes didn’t give it away, Polpo’s old pictures (if you manage to get a hold of them, that is) most definitely will. No one knows how Polpo ended up looking like that now, but in his younger days, around the same age as Risotto, he looked pretty much exactly like him. 

He’s not aware of his biological mother, but he knows she’s a stand user from Egypt, who utilizes magnetism.

Risotto was adopted by a Sicilian family, and was raised without knowledge of his connections to the mafia, or stands. It was not until he began killing at age 18 that he began to look more into who his real parents were.

He doesn’t resent his adoptive parents- his adoptive father was a carpenter, who raised Risotto to be well-versed in carpentry as well, and his adoptive mother was a seamstress. He had an adoptive older sister, and of course, his little cousin who came over so often he practically lived with them. His family isn’t perfect, of course- his father is too strict, his mother too troubled, and his sister was too distant. Thinking about it now as an adult, he couldn’t blame them for being like that. His mother’s miscarriage probably weighed on the family too.

He was always the quiet brooding type. As a child, his quiet inclinations were regarded as him being shy. When he reached into adolescence and began forming opinions of his own, Risotto was then given the “quiet and serious” adage under his name. He’d always been the type to lead and act according to what he believes is right, after all. That being said, however, he operates under his own judgement and experiences, and the same can still be said about him even after so long. His general distrust of authority began showing itself in his adolescence, as well.

Sometimes, Risotto feels a tug in his heart, begging him to come home in their little house in Sicily, and visit his family once more. He painstakingly ignores this, and carries on. He does keep tabs on them however, and the knowledge that they’re safe and sound is enough to carry him on.

He joined Passione at 21 years old, around the same time he awoke his stand. He used to be of equal footing to Sorbet and Gelato, who at the time were both under a different capo. He broke apart from the gang to form his own, having decided that assassination was the best application for his skills after being involved in one of two many murders that were considered “overkill”, even for the mafia.

FORMAGGIO

Formaggio came from an average to low income family. His family was big, too- he had a mother, a father, two older sisters, and three younger sisters. As the only son, he was depended on for a lot of things, and often had to fill in for the father that his little sisters are clearly missing, by being the best older brother he could be. Obviously not by his own volition- he’d very much just relax and enjoy his teenage years, thank you very much- but he’s smart enough to know that his sisters deserve someone to guide them in their early years.

He’s always been street-smart, having dropped out of school just after he finished 7th grade to work. Home life was rather bleak- his father wasn’t home often, but when he was, he was always drunk and would go and beat his mother and his older sisters. This eventually stopped when their father died of liver cancer. Formaggio’s never been religious, but he felt overwhelmed enough to thank whoever was responsible for it.

He committed his first murder when he walked in on one of his elder sisters getting beaten by her husband. Formaggio at the time lived with her, and with two of his little sisters in tow. His other elder sister lived with his mom, along with his other little sister. Thankfully enough, the children were not there to witness either of the abuse or the murder. This had Formaggio contemplating a lot of other things, and soon, he succumbed to the bleak, and harsh criminal underbelly of Italy. He was recruited a year later by Risotto.

Just to establish my last point- Formaggio is actually only one year younger than Risotto- which makes him older than everybody else save for Sorbet. No one else but Risotto, Sorbet and Gelato believe this.

ILLUSO

Came from a well-off, but not wealthy, family. He had an older brother and an older sister, and while their parents weren’t always present due to work, they made sure they were there when public appearances were necessary. He’d always been distant with everybody except for his elder sister, who would care for him to the best of her ability despite being frail and sickly.

Illuso always had a fascination with observing behind the scenes. Being quiet and often overlooked, he grew accustomed to being alone. That doesn’t mean he didn’t sneak off to spy on other people’s conversations he probably shouldn’t be listening to in the first place. 

He knew something was bound to come out of those late night meetings where his father would come home tipsy and infuriated about something. Soon enough, his suspicions were confirmed. His father had lost everything to his gambling addiction, and with it came the family’s already estranged relations with one another. The final straw was when his sister died. 

Illuso, having lost all motivation to keep living in such a life, left home. He figured, he’d always been alone, anyway. What’s a couple of years in the streets gonna do to him? With his natural intuition and general sneaky tendencies, his skills proved important out in the world, where the rule was survival of the fittest.

He was found by a capo, and drafted into the Intel Team after he’d been shot by the arrow by accident. He was a key member until he was reassigned to La Squadra due to a sudden influx of newcomers in the mob.

Admittedly enough, his origins have made him somewhat sympathetic to Fugo, although he’d never admit it.

PROSCIUTTO

Prosciutto was born from an American-Italian family, and was totally a private school kid. He was raised in the States for a while until his 15th birthday, where he travelled with his grandfather from the US to Italy. His family was distant and secretive, but he definitely knew they had ties to something very, very illegal. His mother was sickly and stayed at home, seeing doctors more than she saw her own sons; and their father was never around. Despite the luxury they were raised in, he and Pesci were all they really had. 

He might’ve not noticed it when he was young, but he was trained and educated exactly where they wanted him to– to eventually take over the family business when he was old enough. His grandfather was incredibly supportive of this, and when Prosciutto started showing signs that he had tremendous potential to become the head of the famiglia.

When he travelled from the US to Italy, this was his first introduction to the bleak life his grandfather led. He committed his first murder at 16, all curated and taken care of by the mafia. It was certainly a bit much, but Prosciutto showed commitment to his grandfather’s will for him.

He joined Passione at 20 years old, after his famiglia’s territory was taken over by Passione. Some of his men survived, while some were not so lucky. He was officially drafted into the Hitman Team shortly after Formaggio was.

PESCI

Him and Prosciutto are actually full brothers. Him and Prosciutto were private school kids, and while Prosciutto aced all his classes, Pesci was content receiving  average marks. He truly excelled in choir and in theater, however, and in turn made his mother incredibly proud of him. She would always come to his recitals whenever he performed, main role or not, despite how sickly she was.

Pesci didn’t bother with their dad- Fra says not to. And while was not close to his own grandfather like Prosciutto was, he was incredibly close to his uncle. While he had his suspicions about the true source of their family’s ludicrous wealth, his uncle always made sure to spend time with Pesci, taking him out swimming and fishing and all that. His uncle made sure he had a childhood- too concerned with Pesci being drafted into their dangerous lifestyle too early like Prosciutto was.

When Prosciutto left for Italy, Pesci stayed behind for a while, as he was only 12 when his brother went. He caught wind of his brother’s untimely fate of joining the mafia when he was 17, and it goes without saying that Pesci was heartbroken. He then ultimately made it his goal to find him and be reunited once more.

Pesci was drafted into Passione at age 20, but became a part of the Hitman Team at 21, after a particularly intense argument with Prosciutto.

MELONE

Melone was born in Switzerland, but he moved to Italy when he was around 10 years old. His parents were doctors who were constantly away due to their job, and while he had no other siblings, his parents made sure he had everything he could ever want. From toys to new clothes to books, he was very much spoiled. Perhaps it was to compensate for the fact that while he attained a lot of academic achievements, his parents remained absent. They were very proud of him, however, as he’d proven himself to be nothing short of a genius at a very young age. He was polite, and spoke well with elders. He generally got along with his peers, although they did find him odd and intimidating at times.

When he was in his teens, he begun to seek out partners. Perhaps due to his own curiosity, he saw too much a little too soon. This was also when he’d killed his uncle in a fit of rage, after he’d tried to assault Melone. This was when his genius turned into a maddening hunger for knowledge. It goes without saying that Melone experimented on his uncle’s corpse, and a bunch of other laboratory samples.

When he dropped out of university, he begun to sell information about his research in shady places online. He was drafted into Passione when a capo took note of his rather… interesting discoveries about reproduction and genetics, and figured his abilities could prove useful.

He became part of the Hitman Team shortly after Illuso joined.

GHIACCIO

Ghiaccio was born in Korea, but moved in his pre-teen years after his parents were offered work in Italy. He had an older sister whom he idolized, and initially was his reason for pursuing ice skating in the first place. Their parents were never the most outwardly affectionate, towards each other and their children, but Ghiaccio’s older sister always made sure he knew how much she loved him.

His interest in linguistics were sparked by his parents, who were interpreters. He never really cared much for it when he was really young, but when he began to turn his attention to books instead of his peers who would often cast him out, he found out he was a natural at picking up different languages and its quirks.

He started seriously skating when he was 10 years old, and would always beg his sister to come with him. She humoured him, being a skater herself. Ghiaccio has very fond memories of those winter mornings when him and his sister would sneak out of the house to go find a lake frozen over, and skate for a few hours, forgetting all their troubles. He started competing at age 13, and won his first gold medal at 14. He proved to be a prodigy in ice skating.

Due to his peers casting him out and emotional neglect from his parents, his characteristic anger issues began manifesting. They started showing more violently out of humiliation and hatred for himself when he injured himself during a performance. He begun to shut others out, only ever reacting in anger and annoyance. His anger issues got worse when his older sister was injured just before one of her performances, and out of anger, he took off and killed the person who had orchestrated her injury.

Knowing he could never return to his old life after this, he set off and took his anger out on a random group of strangers at a bar who pissed him off too much at the moment, the alcohol in his system amplifying the anger and shame he felt. He was found by Sorbet and Gelato, who recommended him to Risotto. He became part of the Hitman Team shortly before Pesci joined.