B021 - Abbate, Paulo[/DECEASED]

[MurderWeasel]

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Name: Paulo Abbate
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Watching UFC, participating in backyard MMA, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Appearance: Paulo is a boy of stocky build at 5'7" and 180 lbs. As per his mixed Brazilian ancestry, he has a light brown shade of skin and thick, dark hair that he tends to keep cut short. His nose is crooked, having healed poorly after being broken in a backyard mixed martial arts bout. He also has a scar on the base of his right index finger where he had cut it on a bike chain during a rather nasty spill in his youth. His eyes are a dark brown, almost matching his hair in shade. Paulo's wardrobe is dominated by mixed martial arts wear. Rarely is he seen without a gaudy Tapout, Sprawl, or Affliction T-shirt. When he can get away with it in school he wears similarly marked baseball caps. He wears ratty jeans most of the time, as most of his money tends to get spent on the fightwear. His shoes are similarly beat-up tennis shoes. He doesn't have a muscular cut to his body. Most of him is soft, especially in the abdominal region. Despite obviously being out of shape, Paulo has a cocky walk and carriage, as if he's actually a professional fighter.

On the day of the abduction, Paulo was wearing a black T-Shirt with a large Affliction logo emblazoned in silver with skulls and steel wings in the background, a baggy pair of jeans, white running shoes, and a TapOut flat-brimmed Fifty-Fifty baseball cap.

Biography: Paulo was one of the fraternal twins born out of wedlock to Marcello Silva and Jennifer Abbate, alongside his sister Alda. Due to the circumstances of their parents meeting, neither of the Abbate siblings know their father very well.

Marcello was a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor in southern California, in the country on an expired work Visa. Jennifer, a career retail worker, had decided to try out BJJ for self-defense at Marcello's school after being assaulted transporting a deposit to the bank. She had shown somewhat of an aptitude for the martial art, and Marcello, interested in getting more representation for his school in the female divisions so as to drum up more memberships, started giving her private lessons. It was during these sessions their relationship moved beyond master and student into something more.

The two began their relationship outside of the school in earnest, going on the occasional date when they could manage it. Two years after Jennifer started training at Marcello's school, they started talking about marriage. The benefits of the marriage were twofold; the two seemed to be very much in love and it was a natural progression, and Marcello would be able to stay in the country without fear.

It was around four years into the relationship, when Jennifer was pregnant, that the two started running into trouble. Jennifer was tired of Marcello spending more and more time at the school and his seeming attitude that he was more interested in her jiu-jitsu than their marriage. Little by little, the rift between them continued to open as Marcello became more and more scarce as he got students ready for tournaments, or went to grappling seminars, or flew home to Sao Paolo on occasion to train with his former coach. Marcello almost didn't make it to see his son and daughter born.

A month after the twins were born, Jennifer up and left California with her two children to Seattle to live near her family, fed up as she was with Marcello. She threatened to get him deported if he followed her, and since he was still an illegal immigrant, he couldn't pursue legal action.

The Abbate siblings were brought up mostly ignorant of their father. The family was poor, living off Jennifer's meager wages and whatever help from her family they could provide. Alda grew up with a vague interest in poetry and softball. Paulo, perhaps taking after his father, started watching UFC at about ten years old. Of course, he favored watching Brazilian fighters, specifically the ones who were submission specialists, like Demian Maia, Rousimar Palhares, and any fighter who had several submissions to their credit. The fires of this interest were stoked when his mother, figuring her children should at least know where they came from, told them their father was a good-for-nothing BJJ teacher, then told them to stay away from the sport if they knew what was good for them. An easy enough task for Alda, who had no interest in it.

Paulo, however, latched onto the idea that his father was a black belt. It became almost an obsession for him to emulate the man, in hopes someday it would be his ticket out of poverty. It was especially difficult because his mother wouldn't pay for him to take BJJ, both out of a respect to their finances and her own personal distaste of the martial art.

Paulo made do with what he did have; the internet. At age 13, he started watching countless YouTube videos of techniques, while continuing to watch UFC events online as often as he could. He would invite friends over to practice techniques, and that's how the backyard MMA started happening. Eventually he had a ring of friends from school that spent their weekends beating on each other with poor semblance of technique from what they imitated. His mother eventually found out about it, thanks in no small part to Paulo's sister. But she couldn't enforce an effective ban on his activities as she had to work all the time to support the family.

As the circle of friends grew, so did Paulo's false confidence. He came to think of himself as a backyard jiu-jitsu master, and he started trying to act more Brazilian, which essentially amounted to him speaking in a faux-Brazilian accent most of the time. He even insists to people they call him by his father's Brazilian surname of Silva, as long as he knows his mother won't find out about it.

He started wearing fight-wear around school to culminate a tough guy image, although he's never actually gotten into a fight at school, as he doesn't want his image of himself to be shattered. His mother tries every so often to break him of these habits because in a way, he reminds her of Marcello. But Paulo clings fast to this image.

The MMA fights in Paulo's backyard is mainly what his group of friends is. For the most part, this group contributes to his ego. Since few of them know any better, they believe Paulo actually knows what he's talking about when he does "jiu-jitsu" in their fights, or tries to teach any of them the moves. He rides high on their ill-placed praise, and they help him perpetuate the facade.

Alda may well be one of the only ones that sees through this image and knows why he tries so hard to live up to it, but she mostly just sees her brother as being a dork with a tough man complex, and his circle of friends as a bunch of morons. In turn, Paulo sees Alda as an insufferable bitch that seems to only want to undermine him.

He has few aspirations or goals, although deep down, he's really hoping that keying in on the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu will give him some sort of connection, however slight, to his estranged father. Even his school performance doesn't indicate any particular intellectual path to greatness, as he's mostly a C to B student with a slight affinity for social studies; his attempts to find out as much as he can about Brazil has lead to some aptitude studying cultures. He has gotten in trouble on more than one occasion for being threatening to other students, although his transgressions have never gone to actual violence. It's fortunate for him that he hasn't gotten into an altercation yet. When he graduates school he's considering tracking his father down, although he feels that becoming a famed fighter by joining a training camp is the best way to get Marcello's attention.

Advantages: Paulo has some measure of toughness, simply by way of sparring with his friends in the backyard; he's taken punches, although they were gloved and untrained punches. His "jiu-jitsu" while technically incorrect in almost every way, may still catch off-guard people with no grappling ability.
Disadvantages: Paulo has an abrasive personality that may burn bridges with potential allies. He also reacts negatively to anyone that questions his tough guy image, and this could potentially get him into trouble.

Designated Number: Male student No. 021

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Designated Weapon: 2x4 wrapped in barbed wire.
Conclusion: Hey there, B021! Nice to see that you're well versed in grappling and all, but your lack of formal training and raw style might get you bloodied harder than a hardcore wrestler. Oh well. At any rate, good luck, and HAVE A NICE DAY! - Dennis Lourvey


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