The Khanum
12-05-2011, 09:15 PM
Username: The Khanum
Character: Nero Marzzone
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Occupation: Janitor
Actor Image: Chris Meloni (http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z352/thekhanum/Hyperlinks/nero_tpo.jpg)
Appearance: Thick arms. Broad chest. Closely cropped black hair. Unblinking blue eyes. Strong features. Wide hands. One thing Nero has learned to do quite well in his thirty-eight years is intimidate. He's attractive in a brutish way, and his features look like they should be permanently engraved with a scowl. His smile—which would more accurately be described as a wolfish grin—can be unsettling but is rarely anything less than sincere. He stands at 6'1", though his stature and raised chin often makes him look taller than he really is. Bright pale eyes sit nestled on either side of a long but not unseemly nose, and his mouth is strangely sensual.
His style incorporates tight clothing that stretches far over his pectorals and tight around his muscled legs, and in the summer months he's fond of wifebeater-type shirts. These shirts reveal (or more accurately, show off) a cubist representation of the crucifixion of Christ tattooed on his upper left arm. He has two other tattoos as well: a detailed portrait of the devil on his right lower leg and, oddly enough, a little butterfly on his upper left thigh.
Personality: Nero, ruler of the entire Roman Empire between the years 54 and 68 AD, is most well-known for playing his fiddle during the Great Fire of Rome. Nearly two millenia later Nero Marzzone enjoys living up to that reputation. He takes a certain amount of delight in chaos and his own paradoxical lifestyle. Nero is a drug addict, a man of ill repute, and a hypocrite. His vices are too numerous to count, though at the core of his character he is not a horrible person. He is also the product of his environment, which will be chronicled later.
There is a lot going on inside Nero's head that is just about unintelligible to the average human being. His thoughts are sporadic and illogical, just like his actions, and for Nero the ends generally justify the means. He's preoccupied with the concept of the afterlife and places a huge amount of importance on the difference between purity and wickedness. Nero is a practicing Catholic who is entirely certain of his own soul's eventual damnation, not only for the drug use and the violent tendencies but also because he prefers sleeping with men over women. In spite of this Nero is a regular visitor at weekly confessional. A priest would find Nero difficult to forget because he is always very detailed while giving his confessions: how many teeth he knocked out of the jaw of the man he beat up at the bar last night, the number of lines of coke he did off of his coffee table that evening, the full name of the man who gave him a blowjob in the alleyway behind the local tattoo parlor.
Nero's good traits are valuable: he has a wonderful sense of humor, he is passionate, and when he truly cares for someone he will put that person above his own needs without a second thought. However it's difficult to locate those good traits beneath his addictions, his manipulative tendencies, and his bouts of psychosis. Very few have tried to dig deeper than those surface qualities, and even fewer have succeeded in uncovering them.
History: Nero Marzzone is of Italian descent but spent the majority of his younger years in New York City being raised by his father, Gino, and his stepmother Moniqua, a Frenchwoman. He never found out what happened to his real mother back home in Sicily because the one time he asked he was taught never to bring up that subject again. Nero's childhood consisted of the three of them living in the Bronx, but materialistically they were never in want. Gino was a criminal, a "classy" one as Gino liked to assert. In little Nero's head he was Don Vito Corleone himself, ruling over his own little mafia in their village in the Bronx. Alas, that was not the nature of Gino's career. In reality Gino was a thug who killed often just for the pleasure of killing. It would come as a relief to most to know that Gino was rarely at home with his wife and child, but what those people don't realize is that the true villain was the one looking after Nero.
Gino never noticed the cuts, the bruises, the sadistic little keepsakes Moniqua left on the boy during their long—endlessly, agonizingly long—afternoons together. A lighted match and a strong grip was all that was needed to show the boy just how little he was wanted by the woman of the house. By the age of three Nero had been to the hospital for eleven broken bones, a split lip, three concussions, and a whole host of other injuries. And Nero received these punishments with almost unnerving silence and a blank stare that did not fit a boy his age. What Gino did notice, however, was the time Nero beat up a boy three years his senior just outside their Bronx apartment. This made Gino swell with pride, and this is how young Nero learned to enjoy violence. Gino had never given his son so much attention as he did that afternoon.
By the time Nero entered his teenage years he was much too big to physically torment anymore, so Moniqua took to psychological and, perversely, sexual abuse. An inappropriate comment here, a lingering look there, and fourteen-year-old Nero found himself completely consumed by shame and confusion. One rainy evening a few months past his fifteenth birthday, Moniqua dared take it too far. She took his virginity, and he broke her arm in three places. Then he left and he never came back.
If nothing else, Nero can be proud of the fact that he is truly a self-made man. He has had almost every handyman job under the sun and taught himself all the basics: he worked as an auto-mechanic, a repairman, a construction worker, a taxi driver. After he left New York he traveled as he was humanly able to go, using up what little cash he had to get to New Orleans and giving as many blowjobs and handjobs as it took to get to the border. Mexico was where he picked up his drug habit, and he stayed there into his twenties. Central America was where he met his first (and fourth) wife, Gloria. She was a hooker whose addictions were well-suited to Nero's, though he was never able to consciously admit to himself how much she looked like Moniqua. Their marriage ended bitterly and violently, though Gloria was always more than willing to throw back any punches Nero tossed her way. He had two more wives and three more marriages to get through before he settled into happy bachelorhood at the ripe old age of thirty-two.
His marriage to Nadine lasted less than two months, courtesy of a taxi-driving stint Nero picked up in Vegas. He was mostly just using her for drugs anyway. He met his third wife Joanna working as a mechanic; she was young and stupid and thought Nero was handsome, though apparently she found him less appealing when walking in on him in bed with two other men. Fate put him back together with Gloria less than a week later (at a county jail in Texas, no less), and he was relieved to reignite their relationship because she had always known and supported his appetite for young good-looking men. When she was shot and killed by her drug dealer Nero went into his first real bout of mourning; in spite of their abusive, self-destructive romance he had loved her more thoroughly than anyone else. And when the coroner informed him that she had been pregnant, Nero decided it was a sign from God telling him that he was never intended to father a child. Gloria's death is indeed what sparked the religious fever, but God was not enough to stop him from sleeping with other men. He had a type: young, virile, submissive, and willing to handle his aggression. But he refused to touch anyone, man or woman, who wasn't of age: at least Moniqua had taught him something worth knowing.
Nero arrived in Marseille at the age of thirty-four, and it took him the good part of a year to get used to hearing his stepmother's accent everywhere he went. He picked up residence in Paris just recently—a tiny apartment tucked away just beyond the Madeleine Church—and even more recently became employed by the Paris Opera House as a janitor. It's his first introduction to fine culture, and so far he's pretty sure he prefers the dark dingy bars to which he is much more accustomed.
Character: Nero Marzzone
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Occupation: Janitor
Actor Image: Chris Meloni (http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z352/thekhanum/Hyperlinks/nero_tpo.jpg)
Appearance: Thick arms. Broad chest. Closely cropped black hair. Unblinking blue eyes. Strong features. Wide hands. One thing Nero has learned to do quite well in his thirty-eight years is intimidate. He's attractive in a brutish way, and his features look like they should be permanently engraved with a scowl. His smile—which would more accurately be described as a wolfish grin—can be unsettling but is rarely anything less than sincere. He stands at 6'1", though his stature and raised chin often makes him look taller than he really is. Bright pale eyes sit nestled on either side of a long but not unseemly nose, and his mouth is strangely sensual.
His style incorporates tight clothing that stretches far over his pectorals and tight around his muscled legs, and in the summer months he's fond of wifebeater-type shirts. These shirts reveal (or more accurately, show off) a cubist representation of the crucifixion of Christ tattooed on his upper left arm. He has two other tattoos as well: a detailed portrait of the devil on his right lower leg and, oddly enough, a little butterfly on his upper left thigh.
Personality: Nero, ruler of the entire Roman Empire between the years 54 and 68 AD, is most well-known for playing his fiddle during the Great Fire of Rome. Nearly two millenia later Nero Marzzone enjoys living up to that reputation. He takes a certain amount of delight in chaos and his own paradoxical lifestyle. Nero is a drug addict, a man of ill repute, and a hypocrite. His vices are too numerous to count, though at the core of his character he is not a horrible person. He is also the product of his environment, which will be chronicled later.
There is a lot going on inside Nero's head that is just about unintelligible to the average human being. His thoughts are sporadic and illogical, just like his actions, and for Nero the ends generally justify the means. He's preoccupied with the concept of the afterlife and places a huge amount of importance on the difference between purity and wickedness. Nero is a practicing Catholic who is entirely certain of his own soul's eventual damnation, not only for the drug use and the violent tendencies but also because he prefers sleeping with men over women. In spite of this Nero is a regular visitor at weekly confessional. A priest would find Nero difficult to forget because he is always very detailed while giving his confessions: how many teeth he knocked out of the jaw of the man he beat up at the bar last night, the number of lines of coke he did off of his coffee table that evening, the full name of the man who gave him a blowjob in the alleyway behind the local tattoo parlor.
Nero's good traits are valuable: he has a wonderful sense of humor, he is passionate, and when he truly cares for someone he will put that person above his own needs without a second thought. However it's difficult to locate those good traits beneath his addictions, his manipulative tendencies, and his bouts of psychosis. Very few have tried to dig deeper than those surface qualities, and even fewer have succeeded in uncovering them.
History: Nero Marzzone is of Italian descent but spent the majority of his younger years in New York City being raised by his father, Gino, and his stepmother Moniqua, a Frenchwoman. He never found out what happened to his real mother back home in Sicily because the one time he asked he was taught never to bring up that subject again. Nero's childhood consisted of the three of them living in the Bronx, but materialistically they were never in want. Gino was a criminal, a "classy" one as Gino liked to assert. In little Nero's head he was Don Vito Corleone himself, ruling over his own little mafia in their village in the Bronx. Alas, that was not the nature of Gino's career. In reality Gino was a thug who killed often just for the pleasure of killing. It would come as a relief to most to know that Gino was rarely at home with his wife and child, but what those people don't realize is that the true villain was the one looking after Nero.
Gino never noticed the cuts, the bruises, the sadistic little keepsakes Moniqua left on the boy during their long—endlessly, agonizingly long—afternoons together. A lighted match and a strong grip was all that was needed to show the boy just how little he was wanted by the woman of the house. By the age of three Nero had been to the hospital for eleven broken bones, a split lip, three concussions, and a whole host of other injuries. And Nero received these punishments with almost unnerving silence and a blank stare that did not fit a boy his age. What Gino did notice, however, was the time Nero beat up a boy three years his senior just outside their Bronx apartment. This made Gino swell with pride, and this is how young Nero learned to enjoy violence. Gino had never given his son so much attention as he did that afternoon.
By the time Nero entered his teenage years he was much too big to physically torment anymore, so Moniqua took to psychological and, perversely, sexual abuse. An inappropriate comment here, a lingering look there, and fourteen-year-old Nero found himself completely consumed by shame and confusion. One rainy evening a few months past his fifteenth birthday, Moniqua dared take it too far. She took his virginity, and he broke her arm in three places. Then he left and he never came back.
If nothing else, Nero can be proud of the fact that he is truly a self-made man. He has had almost every handyman job under the sun and taught himself all the basics: he worked as an auto-mechanic, a repairman, a construction worker, a taxi driver. After he left New York he traveled as he was humanly able to go, using up what little cash he had to get to New Orleans and giving as many blowjobs and handjobs as it took to get to the border. Mexico was where he picked up his drug habit, and he stayed there into his twenties. Central America was where he met his first (and fourth) wife, Gloria. She was a hooker whose addictions were well-suited to Nero's, though he was never able to consciously admit to himself how much she looked like Moniqua. Their marriage ended bitterly and violently, though Gloria was always more than willing to throw back any punches Nero tossed her way. He had two more wives and three more marriages to get through before he settled into happy bachelorhood at the ripe old age of thirty-two.
His marriage to Nadine lasted less than two months, courtesy of a taxi-driving stint Nero picked up in Vegas. He was mostly just using her for drugs anyway. He met his third wife Joanna working as a mechanic; she was young and stupid and thought Nero was handsome, though apparently she found him less appealing when walking in on him in bed with two other men. Fate put him back together with Gloria less than a week later (at a county jail in Texas, no less), and he was relieved to reignite their relationship because she had always known and supported his appetite for young good-looking men. When she was shot and killed by her drug dealer Nero went into his first real bout of mourning; in spite of their abusive, self-destructive romance he had loved her more thoroughly than anyone else. And when the coroner informed him that she had been pregnant, Nero decided it was a sign from God telling him that he was never intended to father a child. Gloria's death is indeed what sparked the religious fever, but God was not enough to stop him from sleeping with other men. He had a type: young, virile, submissive, and willing to handle his aggression. But he refused to touch anyone, man or woman, who wasn't of age: at least Moniqua had taught him something worth knowing.
Nero arrived in Marseille at the age of thirty-four, and it took him the good part of a year to get used to hearing his stepmother's accent everywhere he went. He picked up residence in Paris just recently—a tiny apartment tucked away just beyond the Madeleine Church—and even more recently became employed by the Paris Opera House as a janitor. It's his first introduction to fine culture, and so far he's pretty sure he prefers the dark dingy bars to which he is much more accustomed.