ponderings on i prescelti sette, in no particular order
Fong (real name 易风/Yì Fèng)
born in buttfuck-nowhere, Sichuan mountains, he has a bunch of siblings in his mid-30s at the time of the curse never actually did much in terms of martial arts competitions, he was always more focused on learning and training for the sake of the sport itself. limited media presence as a result barely spoke any English at the time he met the others (and not a word of Italian), so at first he often just listened to them speak and smiled while having no idea what they were saying had no involvement with any kind of mafia until being forced to by the curse, as making a living and just, like, existing was otherwise basically impossible yes this made that first meeting just, immensely weird for him
Luce
being the boss to a very old Sicilian mafia family, she was naturally born on the island we don't know exactly how long the chosen 7 spent working together before the fated day, but i like to think it was long enough for them to become friends and for the curse and its consequences to really, really sting anyway what i'm saying is that Luce wasn't pregnant yet when they met. she knew she would be relatively soon, but the announcement was definitely a joyous occasion for the group and served to reinforce their bonds was familiar with Reborn before either of them were chosen, but they weren't close by any means (i have. a lot more thoughts about her, which you can read about here)
Lal Mirch
born in Milano, she's got a bit of that city-folk arrogance this, combined with the fact that she was an instructor in the military, in the 80s, in Italy ? made her one of the most unpleasant people to be around at the time like, of course there's the spartan discipline, the temper, the bad mouth - but more than that there's the fact that as a woman in her field, she would've had to harden herself mentally and emotionally so as to not look weak or vulnerable. which translated into becoming entirely unapproachable once she got over her dislike of working alongside mafia folks as part of the chosen 7, she actually grew quite close to Luce, as they found they had a lot in common. this would make the feelings of betrayal at the realization that Luce knew what would happen only hurt more
Verde (real name Roberto Verdini, Verde is just a nickname)
born in Roma, to the surprise of absolutely no one while he was never directly part of a mafia family, he financed some of his work through mafia funding even before the curse. look, have you tried getting an academic grant ? had a tendency to take notes for ideas or maths directly on his coat when he had no paper on hand. this changed with the curse, as he grew much more protective of his research, to the point of slight paranoia, after losing the most important bonds of trust he had in his life up to that point speaking of, he would sometimes do the rubber duck method with Fong back then, throwing his ideas at who might as well have been a sentient wall when that habit started. this had the unexpected side-effect of teaching Fong a lot of technical Italian words and Roman slang that he will never use the only times he's ever been seen sitting normally in some sort of chair is at church. it keeps surprising people that the mad scientist would be like, a practicing catholic, but he's personally never seen any contradiction between his work and his beliefs
Skull (stage name, but might as well be his real one)
from Colorado. originally i wanted him to be Canadian, but then i thought about it and realized Nouveau Cirque wasn't a thing in the 80s and the Montreal circus school only opened in 1981, making it too late for Skull to have ever been part of it. so instead i was like 'okay, Skull is a reckless thrill-seeker who does stunts. he needs mountains and rough terrain' also he just feels like a yank, y'know he was like, at most in his early 20s at the time of the curse did not, and still doesn't take off his stunt suit or his makeup basically ever. especially not in public really appreciated that Fong always listened to him and never told him off for talking bullshit. never caught on to the fact that Fong barely understood a word he was saying at the time joined the Carcassa by complete accident after the curse. as in, he started crying in the middle of the street after realizing he couldn't even ride his bike anymore, and some random goon passing by felt real bad for him and took him to get some juice. cut to the next day and Skull has basically been adopted into the family through the power of getting really drunk together
Viper (real name ???)
born in Belfast in a working-class family, raised catholic always felt some sense of disconnect between themself and the world, but with no words to really put to that experience, they kind of assumed it was linked to like, the Church, and also the English occupation and the Troubles. so they joined the Provos as you can imagine, having an illusionist on your side is really useful for guerilla warfare, and Viper learned a lot during that time, both from the situations they found themself in, and from the other illusionists in the organization did you know there's no species of snake native to Ireland ? Viper was never going to stay, even if they hadn't been chosen do not look at them. do not talk to them. do not fucking acknowledge them if they don't reach out first (not that they will) the only person they really respected and vaguely vibed with in the group was Lal Mirch (the others either yapped too much, pried too much, or in the case of Luce, while there was respect there, she also really scared them), so. you can imagine that the post-curse layout of the arcobalenos was. not to their liking on top of the worsened dysphoria on account of they're a baby now
Reborn (real name is he'll fucking shoot you if you ask too many questions, don't test him)
born in a village in the region of Puglia, but feels something akin to shame from it, so one of the first things he did when leaving his childhood home was to build himself a new persona look there's no way a man goes around greeting people with "Chaos" hasn't decided to turn himself into his own edgy oc. he's literally been reborn first joined the mafia because it sounded cool and suited the image he wanted to give off, and he didn't care what he needed to do, but then it turned out he's really, really good at killing at the time he was at his peak, Varia hadn't been founded yet, but he was probably the closest thing to it as would have been possible liked making slideshows for the group for strategy meetings, and to force Skull to learn something. anything. and also because it was funny to make everyone sigh and groan didn't actually have much of an interest in teaching at the time, but did make an effort to teach Fong more English and some Italian once he realized that the poor man was going about just. basically linguistically blind. that's a hazard in any mission and if no one will step up to fix that, then Reborn will do it, and by god he will succeed
