the trick is to keep breathing

Hmm... I tend to not care to write fanfiction about stories that I think were told well enough for me to leave alone, hence why I never dabble in 9. I do love the story of Freya, Vivi, and even Eiko to some extent to death. I agree, though, it was the start of the "batshit insane final disc" trends in the FF series, which is generally a bad thing. If only they could have stuck with Kuja alone as the bad guy, or maybe just animated his thong instead of bringing up that old fart and the crystal and all that other shit I can't remember.

I will say, I have read some pretty good FF9 fiction involving Freya and Amarant getting together after the story, with Fratley getting in the way, or not, as it may be. Also some really interesting pieces with Eiko / Vivi-sorta, as in, after the game Vivi becomes a Black Waltz and then terrorizes Eiko, who beats him down. So there is cannon fodder there. I think the non-humanity of the characters kills a lot of the fanfiction, though. It's stepping too close to writing "furry" fiction, which is just... SQUICK SQUICK SQUICK.