F05 - PONTECORVO, ASHLEY [DECEASED]

#1

DECEASED

Name: Ashley Fiore Pontecorvo
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: Saint Editha Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Cars and motorcycles, mechanics, partying, punk culture

Appearance: Ashley is 5’6” tall and is on the higher end of average weight at around 140 pounds. She has an hourglass figure, with a large bust and curved hips and thighs, and a smaller waist. Ashley has a tanned olive complexion and is of Italian Jewish ancestry. She has a heart-shaped face, with high cheekbones, a thin, upturned nose, and thin lips. Her eyes are oval-shaped and light brown, and she has a beauty mark just below the outside corner of her right eye. Her hair is straight and is a darker shade of brown which lightens towards the ends as it grows out, giving it an ombré look. It is shoulder-length and worn in shaggy layers, with long, choppy bangs swept towards the left side of her face.

Outside of school, Ashley dresses in a punk style inspired by the street fashion of larger UK cities, mixing nods to the classic punk looks of the 1970s with modern counterculture trends. Ashley is also not shy about showing off her body when she feels like it with short skirts or shorts and crop tops or shirts with low necklines, as she is proud of her looks and often enjoys the attention she receives for them. She wears makeup most of the time, preferring dark, heavy eyeliners and eyeshadow, and dark red lipstick to fill out her mouth.

Ashley has several tattoos and piercings. The oldest of her tattoos are two thin, plain black band tattoos on her right wrist. On the back of her right shoulder is a stylized alien head modeled after a stereotypical Grey alien, colored with a blue and purple galaxy pattern, above the words “Stay Weird”. She has a large, black and white Death’s Head moth located just underneath her bust, and a small black crescent moon on her sternum. She also has a tiny lineart tattoo behind her left ear, normally hidden by her hair, depicting a skeletal hand with a raised middle finger. Her ears are pierced once in the lobe, and she has an industrial piercing in her left ear, and a navel piercing.

In her school uniform, Ashley alternates between a skirt and slacks depending on her mood. She has few qualms about violating the uniform code, though she mainly does so in intervals so as to avoid constant disciplinary action; she likes to push the boundaries of the rules even when technically following them. On the day of the abduction, Ashley was wearing her uniform blouse, skirt, blazer, and tie. She was also wearing a low-cut white tank top sporting an inverted crucifix in red beneath her blouse, black ankle-length studded biker boots, and ripped fishnet tights over which she had worn the required white socks. She also wore a pair of faux taper plug earrings made of white plastic and decorated with a blood spatter pattern, a plain stainless steel barbell in her industrial, and a silver navel ring in the shape of a skull and crossbones. As usual, she was wearing black eyeliner and eyeshadow and dark red lipstick.

Biography: Ashley was born on June 28, 2007, to Mia Pontecorvo and Dario Ravenna. While they were in a committed relationship, marriage had never been a priority for Ashley's parents; aside from the fact that she was given her mother's surname, Ashley's home life was effectively no different from that of a child with married parents as far as she could tell. The couple both worked from home in web design and consulting, making a modest living in London’s East End. Ashley would be their only child, despite later attempts to conceive and occasional discussion of adopting another child which never really progressed beyond one of her parents making the suggestion. As a result, both of Ashley’s parents paid a lot of attention to her, and she was spoiled to the degree that their income would allow, frequently treated to family outings and gifts that Mia and Dario could comfortably afford.

As a child, Ashley was very curious. She liked to take things apart to see how they worked, though at a young age she was much less successful at putting them back together in working order. One of her favorite activities was attending car shows with her father, where she could admire the aesthetics of classic or customized cars and ask questions about how they worked and what went into customizing them. Her parents fed her interest with model kits and allowing her to watch TV shows that covered the mechanics and industrial processes of making things. The aesthetic appeal of different car designs appealed to her, and she liked the idea of tinkering around with a car of her own someday. In her early school years, Ashley did decently; she did better with hands-on learning than lectures and note-taking, and her energetic and social nature allowed her to be easily distracted at times, but she handled schoolwork well enough. She had something of a reputation as a class clown and had a decent circle of friends.

Ashley’s fairly normal and uneventful lifestyle ended abruptly when she was 11. Mia and Dario had recently begun allowing her to stay at home alone in their flat for short periods of time while they went out to run errands; one such evening, while the couple were out buying groceries, an American air raid took place over the East End. Ashley was taken to a bomb shelter by a neighbor who knew she was staying home alone, and she emerged unscathed with the rest of their neighbors after the raid ended. Her parents never returned home. Their bodies were eventually identified in the wreckage of the shopping center they had been at when the building had been bombed.

Ashley’s world was completely shattered by the loss of her parents. She spent a short time in the care of social services until a relative was finally located: Ashley’s maternal grandfather, Gianfranco Pontecorvo. Though he was Ashley's only living grandparent, as his wife and her paternal grandparents had all succumbed to age and illness at that point, Gianfranco was effectively a stranger to Ashley at this point; he and Mia had been estranged for many years, and Gianfranco had only previously seen his granddaughter shortly after her birth. Their first interactions were stilted and uneasy, especially with Ashley still reeling from the loss of her parents and struggling to cope with her grief and emotions.

Gianfranco took all the necessary steps to take custody of Ashley and bring her to the village of Bellington, where he resided. He also made arrangements for her to be able to take extra classes once she began attending school in Bellington so that the time she spent out due to the loss of her parents and the move would not leave her too behind her classmates. He and Ashley also attended grief counseling together; Ashley would continue to struggle for the next few years with shock and emotional upheaval, which often manifested in angry outbursts, but the therapy did help her begin to connect emotionally with Gianfranco, whom she realized was mourning just like she was despite the distant relationship between him and her parents.

After a few months of adjusting to the new environment of Bellington, Ashley slowly began to open up to Gianfranco. She was curious about him, as she had no memories of him and Mia had rarely talked about her own parents. Gianfranco never went into the full specifics of what had caused the rift between himself and Mia, but it gradually came out that Mia had disapproved of his history in the underground punk scene of the 1970s and 80s, primarily due to past drug use and affiliations with political anarchism that had come about because of his involvement in the scene. After her parents retired to Bellington, Mia had kept little contact with them, and had almost completely ceased contact with Gianfranco after her mother’s death and Ashley’s birth.

Ashley was deeply curious about Gianfranco’s past in the underground, as he clearly still had a fondness for punk rock music and aesthetics, and he held anarchist-leaning political beliefs, though he mostly kept them to himself. He was hesitant to give her a full introduction to punk subculture at first; Gianfranco kept the contemporary punk scene at arm’s length due to his age and his feeling that the culture had become both less authentic and more dangerous with respect to violence and illicit substances over time. He didn’t want to expose Ashley to harmful influences, and he worried that her already-existing emotional issues and anger could lead her to involvement with risky activity in such a potentially-volatile culture. At this point, she had already gotten into a couple of fights at school and been disciplined for them and for nonviolently antagonizing her classmates in other ways when she was unhappy.

Ashley’s curiosity had been piqued however, and she began looking into punk tradition on her own through the internet as well as continuing to push Gianfranco for stories about his youth. Gianfranco eventually gave in and agreed to give her an introduction to the subculture and its history, deciding it would be better for her to have guidance in her interest. The biggest draw for Ashley was the fashion and the emphasis on individuality and subversion of social norms, so Gianfranco was happy to focus on these aspects when they talked about punk culture. He was particularly lenient when she expressed interest in adopting the fashion, including her interest in getting piercings and tattoos The first tattoo that she got was the pair of black bands on her right wrist, meant to memorialize her parents; the rest have less intense emotional significance, but she still considers them artistic representations of parts of her personality and self-expression.

In addition to punk culture being a strong bonding point between Ashley and her grandfather, he continued to encourage her interest in mechanics like her parents had. While he himself was retired, Gianfranco had friends who owned an auto shop in Bellington, and Ashley made a habit of hanging around and lending a hand when she could, later becoming an official employee when she was old enough to legally work. She and Gianfranco also sometimes attend car shows in nearby areas, just like she would with her father. As she got older, Ashley’s interest branched out to include motorcycles as well as cars. She liked the classic image of a lone rebel on a motorcycle and has taken a few test rides on motorbikes driven by others, which she found exhilarating.

While her home life has settled down in the past few years and is mostly comfortable, Ashley’s school and social life are not as smooth. Her performance was particularly bad in the couple of years immediately following her relocation to Bellington, both academically and behaviorally. She developed a streak of picking fights with her peers, some of which escalated into physical confrontation. She also skipped class fairly often when she didn’t want to be around people; this issue was only remedied when she was threatened with the possibility of having to actually repeat a year due to excessive absences. While the threat was mostly empty, it did improve her attendance. Overall, she faced less discipline than she might have otherwise, thanks to Gianfranco being hesitant to punish her at all for acting out when she was emotionally compromised. His preferred approach was positive reinforcement rather than punishment, promising Ashley rewards if she kept out of trouble. Ashley was sometimes at odds with Gianfranco’s desire to behave, as she felt it went against the punk sentiment that he appreciated; while she still doesn’t really grasp the nuances of when and where it would be wisest to challenge authority, she has gotten better at picking her battles, at least with people who can actually punish her.

Ashley’s early troubles in Bellington damaged her reputation among some of her peers, and she continues to inspire mixed feelings. She is an outgoing person and enjoys attending parties outside of school. She often drinks socially and has tried party drugs a few times, though both in moderation thanks to stories Gianfranco has told her about people he knew who died young thanks to irresponsible substance use, as well as his own struggles with the same. Ashley is a flirty and fairly attractive young woman; she isn't interested in pursuing a serious relationship with anyone at this point in her life, as she wants to see a lot more of the world than she has so far and doesn't want the restriction of tying herself down while she's young, but she has had casual flings. While primarily attracted to men, Ashely is open to the idea of being with most anyone who is willing if she is; she prefers to refer to herself as open-minded rather than identifying with a particular orientation, but will say that she is bisexual if pressed on the matter.

While Ashley’s temper can be volatile, she has it under much better control than she used to; her anger comes out in short bursts these days, after which she feels less stressed and returns to her usual upbeat demeanor. She doesn’t like to consciously dwell on negatives and instead prefers to keep moving forward once she has let off steam, and she is willing to take charge of a situation and try to steer things where she wants them to go if she doesn't like what is currently happening. In a positive sense, this translates to a drive to follow through with things and keeps her from sitting by idly, but it can also come off as simple hard-headedness. Her fondness for punk tends to stand out in Bellington, as there isn’t really anything in the way of an underground scene there. Some find her intriguing for it, while for others it pegs her as a troublemaker. In general, people like her for her interests and attitude, or dislike her for the same. Teachers and older Bellington residents tend to be more directly critical of Gianfranco than of Ashley, believing that he overindulges her and doesn’t try as hard as he should to curb her problematic tendencies.

One thing which may surprise those who don’t know her well is that despite her embrace of punk’s general anti-authority sentiment, Ashley is intensely patriotic. She has a great respect for the UK’s military and makes an effort to show that respect to any veterans she might meet. She harbored a general anti-American sentiment from a young age thanks to the common attitude regarding such, but since the death of her parents this has festered into a much more intense form. Thanks to America’s compulsory military service, Ashley does not bother to separate civilians from the American military’s actions; in her mind, all are complicit, and she can get very heated when given a reason to voice her hostility.

After finishing secondary school, Ashley does not plan to pursue further formal education. She wants to move to a bigger city than Bellington, ideally one with an active counterculture social scene, and hopes to secure an apprenticeship in mechanics or something similar. Despite her desire to move, she does intend to keep in touch with Gianfranco wherever she ends up going. As each other’s only living close relatives, they have forged a strong relationship despite its shaky start, and Ashley looks up to her grandfather as a positive and stabilizing influence on her life. As part of one of their deals regarding her behavior in school, Gianfranco promised to use some of his savings to buy Ashley her own motorcycle and help her get a license if she successfully graduated. As she is on track to do so, this reward is something that she is particularly looking forward to, and she plans to take a solo road trip in the near future.

Advantages: While not in great physical shape, Ashley has been in a few fights before and can hold her own in a scrap. She is better at managing stress than one might expect, as briefly letting off steam from time to time lets her refocus and keep up a decent attitude and motivation. She has a driven, take-charge attitude and does not dwell on setbacks for long.
Disadvantages: Ashley enjoys picking fights and often does so to vent negative feelings, which could be very unwise in the context of the Program. She has a fair few enemies thanks to this habit and doesn’t have the best overall reputation among her peers, which could lead to a greater risk when interacting with others. She can be particularly obstinate if she doesn't like a situation or social exchange, leading to antagonism.

Designated Number: Female Student #5

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Designated Weapon: Scythe
Conclusion: I hate to say this about a jumped-up punk, but she might actually have an edge in a fight. We'll see if that's enough to overcome her glowing personality.

DECEASED