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15th Mar '13 4:55:15 PM Xtifr

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[[quoteright:330:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cal_leandros_742.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:341:Japanese covers are sometimes better.]]

Cal Leandros is [[HalfHumanHybrid half-human]], half [[TheFairfolk evil fairy.]] His mother got [[SonOfAWhore paid by the Auphe to produce a child]], and that's all she did. He was raised by his AloofBigBrother Niko ([[WiseBeyondTheirYears who was]] ''[[ImprobableAge four years old]]'' when he was [[PromotionToParent put in charge of a newborn]]), and Niko has spent [[ChildSoldiers his entire life protecting his brother]] and becoming a BadAss. They've also been [[SternChase on the run.]] At age fourteen, the Auphe caught Cal. He came back two days later, [[YearInsideHourOutside two years older]], with no memory of the EldritchAbomination that he'd seen.

Two years later, the guys have [[TiredOfRunning settled]] in NewYorkCity and made a few friends. But the Auphe aren't going to let Cal go...

[[AC: Books in the series so far are:]]
* ''Nightlife''
* ''Moonshine''
* ''Madhouse''
* ''Deathwish''
* ''Roadkill''
* ''Blackout''
* ''Doubletake''
* ''Slashback''

The author, Rob Thurman, is an example of MoustacheDePlume. She has also written the novels ''Trick of the Light,'' ''Grimrose Path,'' ''Chimera,'' and ''Basilisk''. The first two are set in the same universe as the CalLeandros stories.
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'''Contains examples of:'''
* AbandonedHospital: shown in ''Madhouse.''
* AbusiveParents: Sophia.
* AlwaysChaoticEvil: the [[TheFairFolk Auphe]]
* [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl Always Save The Brother]]. Or in Rafferty's case, cousin.
** Cal and Niko swear by this trope. The world had better hope it doesn't come to a choice between it and one of the Leandros brothers.
* AManIsNotAVirgin: Cal's losing of his virginity (more specifically, who he will allow himself to boink) is a plot point.
* AntagonisticOffspring: Promise's ManipulativeBitch daughter, Cherish.
* AnythingThatMoves: Robin. Oh, Robin.
* BadassFamily: The Leandros boys have been forced to become this.
* BadassNormal and BadassLongcoat: Niko.
* BadGuyBar
* BadPowersGoodPeople: Cal finds some good uses for his gate-opening ability, but...
* BatmanGambit: Delilah's solution to her pack demanding the death of Cal. [[spoiler: Her Alpha is dumb enough to believe that a girl can't handle killing a guy. Then she sics Cal on them, knowing that Cal is more badass than her pack.]]
* BerserkButton: Cal and Niko are each other's. Mess with one brother, and the other will come after you. Also, don't hit on Niko in front of Promise.
* BlackSpeech: The Auphe language. Cal learned it during his two-year stay in the Tumulus but the ability to speak it is buried in his suppressed memories and only comes out very rarely and only in very bad situations.
* BodyHorror: Abbagor.
* BusCrash: [[spoiler: George in ''Deathwish.'' Though since she seems to have developed MindManipulation skills in the meantime, it's possible that she somehow faked her death in Grimm's memory.]]
** Technically, [[spoiler: the bus crashed in ''Doubletake.'']]
* CannibalClan: Well, Sawney Beane returns in ''Madhouse.''
* CantHaveSexEver: Cal won't have sex with anyone who can have children, which rules out the girl he actually loves.
* {{Chupacabra}}: One shows up in ''Deathwish.''
* DarkSkinnedBlond (Niko) as well as his father and DarkSkinnedRedhead (George)
* TheDarkTimes: Before humans, Earth was ruled by a wide variety of monsters, most of them quite nasty, with the Auphe being the worst.
* DeadlyDoctor: Suyolak.
* DeadpanSnarker: Most of the characters, but especially Cal and Robin.
* DemonSlaying
* DisappearedDad: Sorta...whoever Cal's dad is, he and his race have been keeping tabs on Cal forever. Also, Niko's dad took off before he was born. And Cherish's isn't even mentioned.
** Bonus points for first, Cal, for [[spoiler: killing his "dad" during his escape from Tumulus]], and then for Niko, for [[spoiler: killing most of the rest of the Auphe and ''all'' of the males, thereby deadending ''that'' genetic lineage of evil]] in the climax of ''Nightlife''.
* DominoRevelation: If the Auphe weren't bad enough all of the other ''weird'' monsters like the Goat Sucker show up or are often mentioned.
* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: Cal.
* EnemyWithin: The Darkling does this to Cal.
* EvilCounterpart: Grimm.
* FirstPersonSmartass: Cal. ''All'' the ''time.'' He can't open his mouth without snark coming out of it. Catcher is this in ''Roadkill,'' though since he can't talk, he types out his comments on a laptop.
* FriendlyNeighborhoodVampires / OurVampiresAreDifferent: Promise. Vampires are born, and thanks to modern technology can live off supplements rather than drinking blood.
* ForkFencing: Amnesiac Cal takes this up in ''Blackout.'' On Robin. [[RunningGag Multiple times.]]
* GoldDigger / BlackWidow: Promise has had five rich, elderly, now-dead husbands. BlackWidow is most likely a subversion since (a) she's a vampire and would outlive them anyway, and (b) given that she's a generally nice person, she probably made their last few years enjoyable.
* HeroesWantRedheads: George.
* HeroicBSOD: Niko at the end of [[spoiler: Deathwish]]. Do ''not'' get this guy mad at you.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Cal and Niko.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Grimm even mentions the original quote (taught to him by one of the teachers he ate) after his showdown with Cal. Both brothers have to watch this, but Cal the most.
* HonestJohnsDealership: Robin's place of employment.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: Cal, of course.
** [[spoiler: by the end of Blackout, he's accepted his monster side and his human side is slowly slipping away.]]
* InTheBlood: Cal is terrified of going Auphe. Leads to TheDarkSide calling... and EvilFeelsGood.
** Niko's father, Kalakos, remarks that their bloodline is said to be descended from Achilles, an idea that Robin reaffirms by saying that Niko and Kalakos look like Achilles.
* ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies: Cal to George and Delilah. Justified in that the Auphe have promised to slaughter his loved ones first.
* KatanasAreJustBetter: Niko loves swords. Cal prefers CoolGuns.
* KnightTemplarBigBrother: Niko, for obvious reasons. Cal too, despite being the younger brother.
* LadykillerInLove: Robin after getting involved with Ishiah...* gasp* ''considers monogamy.''
** Considers it? [[spoiler:He puts the word "monogamite" on his business card--along with the number for the suicide hot-line, which Robin figures everyone will need when they learn he is no longer available.]]
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: The plot of ''Blackout'' involves Cal getting a case of this from [[spoiler: repeated!]] Nepenthe spider venom.
* TheLegionsOfHell: Tumulus.
** More properly, the Auphe. Tumulus is just where they hang out when they're not murdering and torturing everyone else [[ForTheEvulz for the fun of it]].
* LongLostRelative: Cal's [[spoiler: nest of 'siblings']] in Blackout and [[spoiler: Grimm]] in Doubletake. Also Niko's father Kalakos.
* {{Masquerade}}: The Vigil operate as "supernatural janitors" to maintain it.
* MeaningfulName: Cal is short for Caliban. His mother made darned sure he knew why he had the name.
* TheMedic: Rafferty.
* MoralityChain: As Cal's humanity is slowly eaten away by his Auphe side, he comes to consider Niko to be this.
* MuggingTheMonster: a random junkie tries this in ''Doubletake''. His intended victim? Cal.
* MysteriousPast: Promise doesn't like to talk about the bad old days when she had to kill people in order to eat, and Niko [[YouDidntAsk usually doesn't ask.]]
* OccultDetective: Cal, Niko and Promise's business.
* OneGenderRace: Pucks.
* OnlyYouCanRepopulateMyRace
* OurAngelsAreDifferent: Cal believes that the peris and the Greek gods with wings are probably the origin of stories about angels. Given that peris are winged humanoids and that Cal's peri boss, Ishiah, can not only seemingly appear out of nowhere but owns an actual flaming sword, he might have a point.
* OurElvesAreDifferent: To quote Cal:
--> After all, the Auphe were where the elf myth had started and if you took away the hundreds of needle-fine metal teeth, the scarlet eyes, the black talons, shredding jaws, nearly transparent skin, and a raging desire to destroy humanity, then I guess you were close enough. The pointed ears were the same, right?
* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Particularly the ones who got bred to be more werewolf-y. And Catcher, who lost the "were" part of that entirely.
** Also, according to one of the Wolf characters, they aren't humans who can turn into wolves. It's the other way around:
--> "We were wolves first. We started that way. We evolved as wolves and along the way a mutation did occur. We did split from the primary race...but that primary race was wolf."
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: They're called revenants and they're actually alive, for all that they resemble rotted corpses of adult humans.
* PetMonstrosity: Salome the ''mummy cat.''
** And, as of ''Blackout,'' Spartacus, a mummy tomcat that Cal gave to Robin to keep Salome in line.
*** Don't forget the three cats Robin gifted to Promise. Lucky girl.
* PlagueMaster: Suyolak. Dear God, Suyolak.
* {{Portmantitle}}
* PowerLimiter: [[spoiler: As of ''Roadkill'', thanks to Rafferty, Cal can only open two gates within a period of a few days before he dies. In ''Blackout'', however, Cal implies that he believes his Auphe genetics will eventually override the block. In ''Doubletake,'' he turns out to be right.]]
* PrecisionFStrike: Cal may love the "F-bomb," but when Niko drops it in ''Deathwish'', you know it's serious.
* PsychicPowers: George, who's a [[TheFatalist fatalist]] on the subject of whether or not anything she sees can be changed.
* PsychoForHire: Darkling.
* PurpleEyes: Promise Nottinger.
* {{Roma}}: Sophia, Abelia-Roo and the Sarzo Clan. Cal and Niko are half-Roma, not that that counts.
** Actually, it's been stated that Niko is full Roma. However, neither brother is accepted by their mother's clan, the Vayash, because Sophia accepted money not only to have the child of an abomination, but to have a child who would--inevitably--be half-''gadje'' (half-non-Roma). Cal is an insult to Roma tradition by his very existence.
*** Confirmed as of Doubletake, when Niko's Rom father makes an appearance.
* ShoutOut: Despite the fact that Cal's universe has a few differences with our own--a werewolf Mafia, scientists who have developed a treatment for vampirism, and so on, it also shares a lot of similarities. For example:
** In ''Blackout'', Cal uses some [[MeaningfulName Meaningful Name]]s as aliases: [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Calvin F. Krueger]], [[Franchise/{{Halloween}} Calvert M. Myers]] and [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Calhoun J. Voorhees]]. It doesn't take him long to recognize that he, a killer of monsters, gets kind of a kick of naming himself after movie monsters.
** In the same book, he also refers to ''Series/MacGyver'':
--> "I could impale a nosy son of a bitch on a Norman Rockwell picket fence if I had to. Series/MacGyver had nothing on me."
** And he names a mummified tomcat Film/{{Spartacus}}.
** He also talks about [[Literature/WinnieThePooh Piglet and Christopher Robin]] not getting over it if he kills a baby monster.
** His usual nickname for Niko is [[CyranoDeBergerac Cyrano]]. In ''Blackout'', when he can't quite remember the nickname, he asks Nik if he calls him [[Literature/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio Pinocchio]].
** When talking about an angry and badly injured Wolf, Cal refers to him as {{Cujo}} and OldYeller and asks for someone to put the poor rabid bastard down.
** Robin Goodfellow, at one point, asks Cal if he's familiar with the story of ''Theatre/OedipusRex''.
** Cal heard the story of PeterPan from Nik when he was seven and Niko was eleven. This becomes a fairly important plot point in ''Blackout''.
** The ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' movies also apparently exist in Cal's universe, as he refers to a mummified cat's gigantic yawn as "a preview of ''Jaws 15'', the IMAX version."
** Cal gets a double ShoutOut with one line: "[[RayCharles It's going to be a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day]], [[LordOfTheRings Shelob]]," I said with enthusiastic dark cheer.
** Shortly before that, in the same paragraph, he says, "All we needed was [[Creator/HPLovecraft Cthulhu]] singing [the theme song from] ''{{Rawhide}}''."
** He also mentions ''[[Film/{{Spider-Man}} Spider-Man 3]]'' and Tobey Maguire.
** On recovering from amnesia, he says that Nik needs his real brother back--"not a [[TheStepfordWives Stepford]] version."
** In ''Roadkill'', he refers to Spock: "Thank God I hadn't gotten the pointed ears. Who wants to look like a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' or ''LordOfTheRings'' fan boy for the rest of their natural-born lives?"
** When speaking of an immortal and extremely angry entity who can destroy all life on earth, Cal, referring to the entity's habit of singing Roma dirges, says, "Maybe he'll hit ''AmericanIdol'' and that asshole Brit will humiliate him to death."
** When Cal sees a female revenant giving birth, he refers to her as "the size of [[StarWars Jabba]], times two."
*** He also refers to Catcher, a werewolf who is stuck in Wolf form as "Chewbacca."
** Rafferty's cousin Catcher was named after ''Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye''.
** Cal read Creator/StephenKing's ''TheStand'' when he was sixteen and his brother, who was homeschooling him, demanded a book report. According to him, the book scared him nearly as badly as the Auphe do.
** Cal says of Catcher, "He was the happiest damn Wolf I'd ever run across. Franchise/{{Lassie}} had nothing on him."
** And he describes Robin offering cologne "like a professional assassin from a Film/JamesBond movie."
** Robin makes a sarcastic reference to Delilah, the Wolf who's Cal's sometime bedmate, "[[TheSilenceOfTheLambs eating [Cal's] liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti]]."
** Catcher refers to ''Literature/FlowersForAlgernon''.
** Cal tells Delilah that he doesn't care who else she sleeps with: "This isn't ''[[BeverlyHills90210 Weres and Vamps 90210]]''."
** Robin refers to [[spoiler:his penis]] as [[KingArthur Excalibur]].
** Cal calls being on the run and being in very large wide-open spaces "a ''WheresWaldo'' freebie."
* SiblingYinYang: Cal is lazy, foul-mouthed, sulky, not an intellectual, and loves junk food. Niko is a hard-working, rarely swearing, noble, intellectual guy who is a health food snob. The brothers rag on each other for these traits all the time.
* SlapSlapKiss
* SonOfAWhore: The Leandros boys are well aware of being this. Cherish throws it out as an insult to Cal at one point; he assumes she just "knew" from looking at him.
* StarCrossedLovers: Cal and Georgina. As of Doubletake [[spoiler: she peeks into their future and confirms that any relationship they would have is indeed doomed.]]
* SuperpowerfulGenetics: Cal has PerfectHealth (other than getting injured all the time, he's been sick once in his life), and can [[TeleportersAndTransporters open gates to other worlds.]]
* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody: Catcher is slowly losing his human patterns of thinking the longer he stays wolf-only.
* ThePlague
* TomboyishName: George (really Georgina).
* TraumaInducedAmnesia: Cal's inability to remember the two years he spent with the Auphe.
* TricksterArchetype: Robin and Cherish.
* TrueCompanions: Cal and Niko acquire some in the series.
* UrbanFantasy: Really speaks for itself in some regards.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: After getting amnesia in ''Blackout,'' Cal assumes everything nonhuman is a monster. This is ''really'' awkward when he's being introduced to his nonhuman friends.
* WillNotTellALie: Niko, mostly, as a reaction to growing up with a ConsummateLiar mother. He considers [[spoiler: his decision to lie to Cal and dose him with Nepenthe spider venom, even to let him stay happy,]] to be a MoralEventHorizon.
* WingedHumanoid: Peris.
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9th Mar '13 11:49:02 AM madamhydra

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21st Feb '13 10:52:28 AM SeptimusHeap

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Sliding Scale Of Antiheroes was redirected. Deleting wicks to it, Anti Hero Zero Context Examples and "Type X" junk

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21st Jan '13 11:28:00 PM PaulA

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