"For my birthday, when I was ten, Papa gave me hair ribbons and chocolate and a new set of spanners and the chance to pilot an airship without Erin at the co-pilot's wheel. For Vivi's birthday, when he was twelve, he got a houseful of dead children and left us a very gentle little note and went off and Stopped.
Why?"
Why?"
—Eiko
Thirteen years have passed since the events of Final Fantasy IX, and Eiko Carol Fabool has grown into an intelligent, self-possessed young woman and the heir to the regency of Lindblum. She is beloved by her parents, keeps in touch with her old adventuring buddies, and is well on her way to becoming a talented airship engineer.
There are only two disappointments in her perfect world: her fading connection to her eidolons, and the lingering pain of losing her childhood friend, Vivi Ornitier, when she was ten. Otherwise, everything about her life seems almost too good to last.
And then Lindblum is attacked without warning by a violent unknown aggressor, and in trying to stop him, Eiko finds herself whisked away to the ruins of the Desert Palace. Trapped at the mercy of a madman, and armed with only her own wits and some half-forgotten white magic, Eiko struggles to find a way to escape and return home...while at the same time piecing together clues about her mysterious captor. What exactly is Black Tango? What is his connection to Kuja, to the black mages, and to the dead world of Terra? And what part did he play in Vivi's death?
Go Not Gently is quite possibly the best-known FFIX fanfiction on the internet, and certainly among the best. It tackles the darker side of many of the same questions about life, death, and survival that were raised by the original game, and provides some very interesting explorations of the inner workings of magic and summoning on Gaia. In the process, it paints vivid, well-painted portraits of all the familiar FFIX heroes thirteen years down the line, and adds a small but judicious handful of original characters to the mix.
Oh, and there are Black Mages. Lots and lots of Black Mages.
If all this sounds good to you, go and read the story before scrolling down. There are some extremely powerful plot twists that are really best experienced fresh, and only the most major are spoiler tagged below. You have been warned.
This story provides examples of:
- Abduction Is Love: Played with, because Tango is barely conscious that what he's doing is trying desperately to grab on to his happy memories. He admits he probably would have killed her if he didn't already like her.
- Abusive Parents: Tango, to the Black Mages. Played with, though in that everything he does is to save their lives; his abusive behaviors come from his unstable personality, not lack of love for them.
- Apocalypse Maiden: Eiko comes very close to becoming one when she decides to risk summoning Necron to force him to help extend Black Mage lifespan - the other summons are very clear this puts the world at grave risk.
- Ax-Crazy: Tango really isn't all there. Undergoing incredible Body Horror and dangerous self-experimentation will do that to you.
- Babies Ever After: Zidane and Garnet have two children, with a third on the way at the time of the story.
- Battle Butler: Black Mages are capable of turning the destructive forces of nature itself to their will.
Rain prefers making sandwiches and keeping Eiko's rooms in order. - Beautiful All Along: Played with; Tango looks very handsome under his hat - the problem is he looks like Kuja.
- Berserk Button: Don't tell Tango what to do. Also, don't hurt his "children". That goes for Eiko, too."You do not blow up Eiko Carol's people in Eiko Carol's city!"
- Bittersweet Ending: Tango dies and Eiko is permanently scarred by the trauma of her abduction and losing him all over again (not to mention the cognitive dissonance of loving someone who was Ax-Crazy by his own view), but having regained his sanity and kindness, and the black mages stabilize their biology thanks to his efforts, though it takes years to be reborn into new bodies; in addition, it turns out that he left something with Eiko.
- Black Cloak: Tango wears extremely dark colors with the normal Black Mage attire.
- Children Are Innocent: The Black Mages following Tango are clearly more children than Evil Minions, and act it.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Tango has a tendency to go off on weird, Talkative Loon tangents, aggravated by his shifting moods. Alarmingly, Eiko's internal narration starts to have the tangents too, especially after she ends up siding with him.
- Break the Cutie: Both Eiko and Tango/Vivi - in fact, the later breaking and becoming Tango leads directly to Eiko breaking when she realizes her abductor is her previously kind crush.
- Chew Toy: Tango, as it turns out. When not dying turned out to be a prelude to worse things, he hasn't had a great life.
- Damsel out of Distress: Nobody is coming to save Eiko, but that hardly stops her. She only stops trying to escape when she ends up siding with him in an attempt to find a less destructive way to save the Black Mages.
- Death Fic: The loss of poor Vivi still drives the plotline, even thirteen years later. Except not, as he suffered more metaphorical death as Black Tango, but he actually does die at the end.
- Dynamic Entry: Freya and Amarant have no time for doorknobs, man! There's a battle on!
- Doubles for Big Damn Heroes and Deadpan Snark.Freya: Dreadfully sorry I'm late. Amarant wanted us to stop and eat.
- Doubles for Big Damn Heroes and Deadpan Snark.
- Even Evil Has Standards"Oh, Gods, Vivi, Vivi wouldn't kill Steiner, would he?"
- Evil Former Friend: Black Tango is an insane, misanthropic version of Vivi, corrupted by the very process he thought would keep Black Mages alive and lashing out in barely remembered pain at his old friends. He becomes less evil as he remembers more of what actually happened in the course of canon.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Eiko's hair grows out along with her despair.
- The Faceless: Tango and the black mages, although they are far from being Faceless Goons. It's also shown part of the reason they hide their faces is that they all resemble Kuja, as his "sons" through invention, and they understandably resent him.
- Fallen Hero: Black Tango is Vivi, after discovering the Black Mages were bound for extinction, his desperate attempts to survive turned him into a Black Waltz model black mage, and drove him insane with pain; he barely remembers the friendship he had with the party. Subverted due to Love Redeems, causing him to regain his mind and realize the survival of the black mages doesn't require destroying the rest of the planet.
- Forgotten Childhood Friend: Played with. Nobody forgot Vivi, but over the years of loneliness and self-exile, he's rewritten his own history a little in his head...
- From My Own Personal Garden: Tango's first sign of opening up is actually making food from his lab for Eiko. Though she blanches when she realizes he doesn't just the food, but the minions, too - she wonders how much embryonic Black Mage from the fruits he uses as replacement for the factory got in the actual vegtables.
- Get It Over With: Subverted, painfully. It's amazing how fast you change your mind when the strangling actually starts...
- Giggling Villain: Black Tango has a weird giggle he frequently goes into.
- Go-Go Enslavement: Eiko just cannot seem to find proper clothes in the Desert Palace. She makes do with Kuja's leftovers.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: It's amazing how easy it is to set Tango off. Eiko theorizes this is because he still has immaturity from being Vivi combined with Black Waltz aggression.
- The High Queen: Everybody in Alexandria loves Queen Garnet.
- Hurt/Comfort Fic: The core of the fic is Eiko slowly nursing Black Tango back to something resembling sanity after she realizes he's Vivi.
- Important Haircut: Tango begins to soften towards Eiko after this, despite it verging on a Traumatic Haircut at the time.
- Jabba Table Manners: Don't eat lunch with Black Tango. Man does not know how to eat slow.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Eiko is bitterly self-aware of this when discovering Tango is a corrupted Vivi causes all of her feelings for him to come rushing back. By the end of it, she's become just as much of a Cloud Cuckoo Lander as he is, willingly attempting to summon Necron to force it to extend black mage lifespan simply because she can't force herself to betray him in any way.
- Mad Scientist: Tango will never stop looking for a way to save his "children".
- Modest Royalty: Zidane and Garnet have more important things to do.
- Momma's Boy: Rain loves his "mother" very, very much.
- Omnicidal Maniac: This is Necron's purpose, as revealed by the summons - he is effectively the part of the universe that desires to die, and so when manifested he attempts to destroy as much as he can.
- Papa Wolf: Don't ever mess with Tango's "children". Only he's allowed to do that.
- Pet the Dog / Kick the Dog: Tango vacillates wildly between these, with regards to the Black Mages. Sometimes in the same scene.
- Psycho Prototype: There's a reason why Tango's name sounds so reminiscent of the Black Waltzes. He wasn't always, but Vivi didn't exactly have time to consider if converting himself into one would break his mind worse.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Tango's occasional lapses into childish tantrums and pouting only make him that much creepier. And more tragic, when his backstory is revealed.
- Purple Prose: Undeniable at times, but this fic makes it look good.
- Race Against the Clock: Black Mages have a limited lifespan, and Tango and Eiko won't let them stop without a fight.
- Rage Against the Heavens: Eiko does not take the summons revolting when she tries to summon Necron to force him to help well.
- The Reveal: Black Tango is in fact Vivi Ornitier himself, driven mad by the grief of watching his own people die.
- Stockholm Syndrome: Eiko bitterly realizes this is what's happening to her as she falls in love with Vivi all over again while in perfect knowledge of how he's also Black Tango, but finds it increasingly hard to care.
- Take That!: Directed at Eiko's original costume design, by none other than Tango himself."Yellow, Carol? Yellow scoop-neck coveralls with the front cut out?"
- Terms of Endangerment: "Linden-bloom" is the most common one that Tango throws at Eiko, as a pun on her adopted hometown, but he generally showers her with these, to her unease and disgust.
- There Was a Door: There are dozens of doors in Alexandria Castle, but Tango just has to waste a perfectly good window.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: The black mages, according to Tango. Not to mention Vivi himself. ...supposedly.
- Torches and Pitchforks: Zidane half-jokes about this at one point:(Dagger)'s called in the cavalry and all the fine horses and all the fine men, and last time I heard even Quina was sharpening all the forks in the kitchen and asking if this guy was good to eat.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Arguably, this all could have been avoided if Eiko had let the Lindblum air force take on Tango...although, then again, he might have just slaughtered them all and moved on to Alexandria.
- Tragic Villain: All Tango wants is a world where his children can live. It's not his fault that according to his calculations, everyone else has to die to facilitate this.
- The Unfettered: Tango will save the black mages. Period.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Or at least survival of the Black Mages, from Tango's perspective.
- Villainous Crush: It becomes clear to Eiko that Tango acts awfully like someone with a crush on her. And then it becomes clear this crush came from before he was a villain.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The Eidolons to Eiko, upon realizing she intends to summon Necron. They all mutiny and refuse to help her.
