"See Naples and Die": A Short Story

Salutations, one and all. I know that I\'m a little late to the party here - I\'ve only recently been introduced to Gunslinger Girl - but you can rest assured that I\'m a convert! The series is utterly superb and I can\'t sing its praises highly enough - so much so, in fact, that I\'ve been writing a fanfiction instead of researching for a crucial midterm...

To facilitate more convenient reading, I\'ve uploaded the story to Fanfiction.net:

Gunslinger Girl: See Naples and Die

The full text runs to around 13,000 words over three chapters. In matters of timeline it\'s set after Vol. 10, which is as far as the scanlations that I\'ve been able to find run (don\'t worry, I own legitimate copies of Vols. 1-6, but with ADV Manga being pretty much moribund nowadays I despair of ever seeing Vols. 7 and up officially).

The story also references a number of specific landmarks in Naples - I\'ve included links to pictures of them below, to facilitate visualisation:

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Domenichino\'s fresco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A...M%26Gennaro.jpg

Mount Vesuvius: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ViewofNaplesBay.jpg

Villa Floridiana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS4erY7vZjU

Spanish Quarter: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sipitaly/3188110287/

Duomo di San Gennaro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Duomo_di_Napoli_(facciata).jpg

Piazza del Plebiscito: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_del_Plebiscito

Borgo Mariano alleyway: http://www.napolia.it/napoliborgomarinarogk.jpg

Borgo Mariano marina:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Castel_dell-Ovo.JPG

Bersagliera: http://www.labersagliera.it/Immagini/cartolinabig.gif


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Anyway, enjoy! Comments and criticism, both positive and negative, are of course always appreciated.

Looks promising...

Reading stuff of this quality honestly makes me question why I bother.

Seriously, exceptional work.

Spoiler:

A nice introductory tale.

Waiting for more contributions from you!

Brilliant, and tear-jerking

Thanks for the comments so far, everyone. I'm much gratified by your praise, but don't be afraid to make criticisms; I don't want to put in substandard work after all!

This is just a note to say that I've uploaded a new version of the story to DeviantArt - the text is entirely identiical to the fanfiction.net one, but with this I've been able to put the location references actually on the page itself so it may make reading more convenient.

Linkage.

It just pop-up in my head about this story title.

You were inspired from a scene where Rico and Jean help that Accountist in Naple,did you?

I see the link, emperor (although in that chapter they were in Florence rather than Naples), but the specific title is an established saying already and it's also an ironic reflection on when we first meet Mario Bossi. The anime improved on the manga in several places, and this was one of them - when Mario is captured by the Camorra after escaping from Triela in the toilets, in the manga he just says that "some scary dudes are gonna be here" before Triela rescues him, whereas in the anime he makes the much more characterful reference to "See Naples and die" before the Camorra heavies are all gunned down by our golden-tressed cyborg. Mario returned to Italy with the hope of starting his life over again, but grim reality isn't going to let that happen.

Florence....ah!

Now I understood what your title mean.

Thanks anyway!!

Took me awhile to get around to this, but damn.. this was one hell of a fic. Looks like you can't escape the Camorra after all.

Agapita and Mario... damn.

You should get a medal for writing this man, you really should.

Really, really excellent...I'm floored by the opening sequence about Mario's childhood.

I also find the part at the end, about Agapita observing Catholic Mass, intriuging. Religion is a plot device that's hinted at in the canon but never really comes up. I'm curious to see where you're going with that.

Whoops! Sorry for taking so long to respond, Professor Voodoo - I'm afraid that I missed your comment completely! ^^;

Anyway, thanks for your praise. As for the issue of religion I'm surprised that it hasn't come up more before now - it's Italy, even the non-religious are practically marinaded in Catholicism. The SWA has a disused monastery in its grounds! As well as the Agency mausoleum it probably helps with maintaining public cover - "why is a medical quango sited on former military land?" / "there was monastic land here too - swords into ploughshares, and all that.". It's a big part of life there and I don't think that it can realistically be boxed away into the occasional establishing panel of a grand duomo.

As for A&A themselves, they're practising partially for the simple gimmicky reason that it gives them a character distinction which I don't think any fratello, official or fanmade, has picked up on before. I'm also Catholic myself, and because a lot of my writing before now has been spacey sci-fi well removed from humble old Earth it's nice to have an opportunity to express it directly. It isn't just a matter of my own vanity, though - a few months back I sat down and had a long, long think about God and war and its implications for conscience, and this is a way of working it out - a few of the conclusions I came to will be emergent over the next set of stories, once I have a chance to write them.

Also, I like the idea of a big action scene in Monte Cassino at some point in the future.

Thanks for your interest!

As I said I like the idea. I'm also touching on religion in my stories, but from an opposite direction. My Marisa character has a serious chip on her shoulder about Catholic Christianity, particularly nuns. This is because of her faint "memory shadows" of her former life, when she was abused in an orphanage in Dublin. I hope you're not insulted by my somewhat negative presentation of the faith...there will be positive Catholic characters as well.

The idea of a mass action scene at the Abbey of Monte Cassino sounds great, I look forward to it. Perhaps you could tie in a flashback to Grandpa Croce the WWII resistance fighter?

This is because of her faint "memory shadows" of her former life, when she was abused in an orphanage in Dublin. I hope you're not insulted by my somewhat negative presentation of the faith...

Don't worry about it, no problems at all - go right ahead. I've no desire to muzzle people, I'm thick-skinned enough to take a hit without having a tantrum, and I'm not so neurotic that I can't distinguish fiction and drama from the world around me! Besides, Catholics are used to being the baddies, it's like British villains in American cinema .

Robert Frazer wrote:
Don't worry about it, no problems at all - go right ahead. I've no desire to muzzle people, I'm thick-skinned enough to take a hit without having a tantrum, and I'm not so neurotic that I can't distinguish fiction and drama from the world around me!

That attitude places you on far higher ground than 90% of the loonatic Christians I encounter here in the southern United States. Cheers.

Robert again wrote:...it's like British villains in American cinema .

Wait a minute...I thought all evil Romans in movies were actually Brits. Just watch Spartacus, Ben-Hur, Barabas, Gladiator, all the villians have English accents.