Hi, thanks for reading this far.
We're not even halfway through this ridiculously long story, and the second part of the story will be chock full of fight scenes.
In between then and now, I would like it if you read my notes to understand more of the weird ass shit I put in my book. This is going to be very very long compared to my previous author's notes, especially since it discusses mental illness and abuse in this section.
This section will be dedicated entirely to Nero, whom I'm sure most of you probably hate by now.
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So, lets start with the number one question you guys might want answers to.
What is up with Nero?
A. Mental Illness and Upbringing
He's ill, but not the kind of ill that people will do something about because its just bit strange is all. People don't know what to do about his outburts of anger, tears, innapropriate actions, and after a while they either feel sorry for him or are numb to it because its a common occurance.
Officially Nero, has disordered eating habits, is bipolar, and has PTSD.
Nero is not bipolar because he's abused, it's because of his ancestry.
Years of incest and inbreeding in the royal family has left them all crazy little clones of each other, their wealth making them narcisstic as well. Every now and then he mentions that things are disgusting, or that he's born blessed. Years of growing up around people who tell you you're better than everyone else warps a part of a person's mind. He's not a full blown narcisst, but he definetly has a huge ego.
He self-medicates through drinking, its apparent throughout Part One. For half of the entire week he is drunk, tipsy, making irrational decisions in the moment, and no one does anything about it because its normal. They're career criminals, so what if he drinks all day? To them its a mild annoyance, therefore Nero doesn't think anything is wrong and continues on, his cure to a hangover being drinking more rum to numb the feeling.
He was raised having everything done for him, rarely told no, therefore he cannot handle being told no as an adult. It's easy for his train of thought to go towards, well I should marry someone to do something for me, its the logical train of thought that he should be taken care of as an adult from how he was raised.
He is obssesed with his looks, wearing flashy clothes, and abuse fueled his disorded eating habits. Many people with eating disorders I have interviewed specifically for this volume have stated that the influence of a parent or close family member has fueled their body image issues, and Uncle's influence on Nero is clearly the result, because
"he rarely made him eat, trying to keep him small and young."
He never realizes that something is wrong until someone else tells him he's doing something wrong because he's always inside his own head.
He is getting cues from other people in how to react in certain social situations. Therefore after being with Alto for a short time, he is unaware that murder is a horrible act, it is not what business men do, but he has no proper frame of reference of how normal people act, after being locked up for years, marrying a violent man, having a co-dependent relationship, and most of his friends being criminals as well. So he has no idea that he's bipolar, just that sometimes he is not here, someone else is.
His post traumatic stress disorder is shown in various ways. He is used to nightmares, they rarely bother him anymore because he has them frequently. He is anxious or surprised frequently when people touch him, and is happy that Adonis asks before hugging him saying everyone is too touchy. Certain small things make him remember traumatic incidents, and sometimes he has brain fog, spacing out or doing odd things because he is dissociating, but no one knows what to do.
The average person is not going to look at his behavior and understand that he is not quite right. They will assume he is an alcoholic asshole that never grew up and refuses to take care of his kid.
Which yes, is true, and doesn't excuse his many, many many, many, horrible actions, but it does explain them.
Everyone who has a mental illness is not violent, some days they are better, others are bad, some days they are unable to function. In one chapter he is in bed for several days, refusing to get up. Not everyone who has a mental illness is selfish, or spoiled, or any of the horrible attributes he has, because they are all different people with different experiences. It affects everyone differently, and if anyone comes out of this story thinking that Nero is evil because he's mentally ill, then that was not my intention.
Nero was based off of the many petty criminals and re-offenders I have met, after various times of being homeless.
They all had common, intertwining characteristics.
~Lack of strong family support or family history of poverty, some sort of mental illness that wasn't treated until they ended up in prison, abuse.
Many of them weren't even aware they were abused from the things they told me, because being around people who have experienced the same things for years will make you think this is perfectly normal. They were homeless multiple times, because many of them were undiagnosed, or so high-functioning in their mental illness that they never knew they had one until they went to prison and then someone finally diagnosed them very late in life. They continued on for so long, never knowing something was wrong until they comitted a crime, which may have never have happened if someone gave them some adequate care.
Adding in a family history of poverty where there is no money, usually a lack of education, people will turn to petty crimes because in their minds, it is the only choice.
In Nero's mind, he is not evil. He believes he is doing what anyone else in the same situation would do, he sees it as the only, sane logical conclusion, because everyone else around him has ignored his worrying behavoir or encourages it, just as any other person in real life who would undergo similar stressors might fall into.
This doesn't mean everyone who has experienced a weak family structure, is mentally ill, is poor, and was abused will end up a criminal.
I am all of these things, and the worst I have ever gotten was a traffic violation.
It only means there is a higher chance of it happening.
B. Poverty and Homelessness.
If anyone is reading this and they're not in the USA, they might think I'm joking or inflating what I'm saying, but poverty leaves many scars for a long time, and the way USA society is set up ensures that. In many of my stories I like to explore topics that are personal to me, or that bother me, and Nero's actions are deeply influenced by poverty and homelessness.
Nero ends up homeless after escaping his abuser, which happens often for young adults and children. Yes, in many nations there are government agencies and sponsored programs, but after someone was hurt for years, what is the chance they would go to an adult for help, after adults have hurt them multiple times, after the authority figures they were taught to trust have failed them. Some places are so poorly run the kids run away from government agencies meant to protect children because they end up abused again.
Again, in Nero's mind, he sees this as the only choice, and for a lot of people it sadly is.
To many people the selling of one's body to afford food seems dramatic, an over-played trope, but while experiencing homelessness, it was an option many turned to so they could eat.
Nero mentions he was turned away from a food bank because of his race, and even when he goes to a food bank that has food, they want proof of address(he's homeless), or they give him food he needs to refrigerate.
This has happened to me while I was homeless, I wish I was fucking joking.
Relying off of the goodwill of random strangers, comitting illegal acts, many people think they wouldn't do that...but they have options. If someone is homeless for several years, and they see someone is doing slightly better than them by doing petty crimes, the temptation is there.
Even when someone escapes homelessness, sometimes there is not much of a standard of living difference.
The first time I was homeless, and then found a place to stay, the place I was in was worse than the homeless shelter I stayed inside.
The place was roach infested, there was no heat, but the rent was $500 a month, the cheapest I could afford in a metropolitan area. I had no furniture until the last 6 months of my three years living there. I lost sixty pounds because the rent had to be paid before I could eat, forced to get jobs at only resteraunts because I knew I could get at least one free or discounted meal a day.
The landlord never mentioned there were roaches, she never mentioned there was no heat, and she left on vacation for three months, during the entirety of winter, refusing to do anything about it until the next year, because she couldn't leave for vacation. There was nothing I could do about it, because it was difficult to find anything cheaper than $500 a month, so I was stuck there until I was homeless once again.
The homeless shelter I was at had no roaches, there was heat, and at night I felt safer sleeping next to almost a hundred other strangers, some of them convicted sex offenders, than in a room I paid for. It is literally insane that with only very little things to my name, I had a higher standard of living. The second time I was homeless, for a much longer stretch of time, I lived out of my car, and yet again, I still had a higher standard of living, able to have heat, eat food daily, have hot showers as well.
During the entire time I was homeless I was employed and going to school. I finished community college while living out of my car.
People who had learned that I achieved this while I was homeless think I am amazing, and tell me, I'm one of the good ones, because American society has trained people to believe that every homeless person needs to simply pick themselves up by their bootstraps, which is phsyically impossible, nearly financially and emotionally impossible as well.
They fail to realize that even though there were some elements of abusive actions, that I lived through poverty, and had very little support from my parents, I was given a slightly better toolset in life compared to those who were homeless, because my family was upper middle class, both my parents had two degrees, and I myself had more resources.
And I still became homeless.
Nero used to be a sex worker, but stopped and got a retail job, working often, still not making a lot, and then deciding to go back to sex work when he was sexually harassed at a legal job. Adonis only sells drugs because he's a felon and already has drug charges; who would hire him? The idea of returning to prostitution after a few years of being legally employed is so very tempting to Nero because he feels that there is no difference, since someone is touching him at work already. And of the many other people who have experienced chronice homelessness, they say the same, some after becoming homeless so many times, that after finding a place to stay for a short time, working, and then being unable to pay rent after being employed, then becoming homeless again, some just give up.
Nero deals with his past years of homelessness and poverty subconciously by wearing flashy clothes, trying his hardest to look rich, announcing how blessed he is, buying things he never needs because, when will I ever be able to get it ever again? And again, this sounds so trope-y, and overplayed, but the scars of poverty in someone's mind are long and deep.
At the time I am writing this, I have been inside a home for nine months, after my two years of being homeless, and still, until this day, I am nervous without a backpack on, because I need to keep my valuables on me, someone might steal them, when I have no need for that, when I keep them at home. I have hoarded various basic supplies, such as cans, toothbrushes, etc, because it's always in the back of my mind. When people are nice or friendly, or offer to do a favor unprompted for me, I am absolutely convinced they are trying to mug me, manipulate me, or trying to sleep with me, because when you are homeless, you are not a person, you are property of whoever can get to you first.
The idea of being someone else's property is not a foreign concept to Nero, coming from a place where slavery is legal, state endorsed, seen as necessary, and again, he thinks, there is no other choice, and Alto is very viable option as a partner. Not for his money, it definetly plays a role, but because he can protect him. So many people on the street get into relationships because they are lonely, afraid, or need someone to protect them from being mugged or sexually assaulted. Of course he's going to find someone who can protect him, that's what he was culturally raised to believe, and its what people see on the streets, it is the only place his mind can go.
He therefore decides if he's going to be someone's property he should at least get a choice of who it is. When Alto tells him that he's tired of being his dad, and not his husband, Nero literally doesn't understand, he thinks that Alto is being selfish, because he truly believes in their unspoken business arrangement when Alto has made it clear various times that he cares about him.
And even when Alto cares about him, it's still in the context of ownership.
Does that mean that Nero is a selfish and unfeeling asshole?
No. He does care for Alto, he loves him, but their love is warped, their relationship co-dependent. Speaking of which....
C. Codependency
C is for Codependency! Ok lol now that's out of the way.
codependency, adjective: characterized by excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, typically one who requires support on account of an illness or addiction.
Nero and Alto's relationship is possibly the most fun and worst to write, because it wasn't very hard! That's right, it was so damn easy because so many people are in codependent relationships without realizing it, that I did not have to look very far.
Which is so fucked up.
Alto clearly encourages his bad behavior. He has all the power in the world to get him help, make him see a psychiatrist, help him stop drinking, teach him how to read. But Alto is so emotionally insecure, feeling a lack of power as a child that he makes up for as an adult by being a codependent relationship.
He keeps him stupid, so Nero can't leave him, because who else would love a monster? If Nero leaves his bubble of criminals, meets regular people, their relationship will not last much longer. People who are abused can sometimes mistake general, normal kindness as someone being romantically or sexually attracted to them, so Nero tries to sleep with Alto after he offers him a very good job after feeling sorry for him, because that's all he knows.
So Alto preys on this, knowingly and unknowingly, by attempting to humiliate him, keeping him around because he 'worships the ground I walk on', and uses the fact that Nero has abandonment anxiety after his siblings sold him. Alto doesn't need to be physically stronger than Nero to control him, he already does. Nero, just like Ace when he was with Candice, is in a different kind of abusive relationship, and doesn't even know it.
Nero has the same characteristics of codependency as well, with his victim mentality, rationalizing that Alto is always wrong in their arguments, that it is okay to hurt others because someone hurt him. He has low self-worth, is in denial about many of his issues, and is afraid of autonomy. After marrying Alto he has enough money to learn how to read but never does. After gaining the sword he can leave, and yet, he doesn't.
Why go out into the scary world when you can keep dealing with the scary stuff you already know and have your daddy husband take care of you?
In The End....
I tried to write Nero as realistic as possible, to make his reactions as normal as possible as to how someone could become obsessed and hyper-normalized to violence. He's a person that never grew up, surrounded by people that never grew up, who never had a chance to be regular people, and some of them who did, choose to be horrible people. If you hate Nero, I am happy, if you like him, I'm happy, because I want whoever reads my story to have a reacation to the characters I design, even if it's negative.
If there's anything else you can take away from the way I designed Nero, I hope that you can try and use your own real life experiences to create a better character, and do a lot of in-depth research as I did. Interviewing people with eating disorders and who had PTSD made some of his actions more realistic, and his thought processes as well. Understanding how similar people interact, even in bad situations helps add characterization to stories.
And even if you can't apply anything that I've written to story telling you can apply some of this to real life, that everyone has a reason for things that they do, even if its bat shit crazy.