Fanfic / Kimberly T's Gargoyles

A fascinating continuation of Gargoyles, taking the first two seasons as canon and disregarding The Goliath Chronicles (barring a couple of key episodes), Kimberly T presents an engaging look at how the characters’ lives develop as the clan continue their efforts to earn acceptance for gargoyles across the world and find new allies and clan-members, while facing some new threats into the bargain.

Kimberly T’s Gargoyles contains examples of:

• AB Negative: Invoked; when Broadway needs a blood transfusion after his wing sustains a serious injury during stone sleep in “Flesh and Stone”, Xanatos promptly arranges to have Broadway’s clone Hollywood moved from the Labyrinth to the castle as they have limited knowledge of gargoyle anatomy and preferred to limit the risk of incompatible blood types given the diversity of appearance among the gargoyles (although Hudson also volunteers as his status as Broadway’s father makes him a fairly safe bet).
• Abusive Parents: When looking over the family history of the Marsdens, Xanatos realises that Philip Marsden’s childhood home was specifically designed to ward off any fey, to the extent that Phil would have experienced agony the moment he used any form of magic as a child, accounting for his lack of abilities as an adult.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Referenced when Anne expresses concerns about the Steel Clan robots turning on their human masters; Owen bluntly informs her that while the robots may not have always performed up to the standards they wished, they have never gone against their programming.
• An Arm and a Leg: Demona has a gargoyle version of this during her time in Ishimura when her left wing is cut off by a human wielding a laser weapon, although she is able to reattach the wing.
• Artistic Licence – Biology:
  • When Yama's wings were bound during his exile, since it had been so long since anyone in the clan merited such a punishment the initial bonds were so tight that it left Yama's wings nearly crippled; it was explicitly noted that the healing effects of stone sleep are the only reason he didn't outright lose the wings due to the damage to his circulation, and even then he needed various surgeries to restore his wings.
  • After Broadway’s wing is injured, it takes time for him to regain full flight capacity even after the wound is stitched up, the gargoyles actually being surprised at the idea of him needing physical therapy as they’re used to stone sleep either fixing them completely or not fixing the injury at all.
• Asshole Victim: In “Escape from Avalon”, Quentin Marsden is visited by a man who informs him that his grandson has been officially declared dead, and when Marsden shows more interest in getting back to a TV show he was watching, the messenger has no problem obeying his instructions to play a ‘joke’ that leaves Marsden convinced he’s been poisoned. Prior to this, Xanatos's research into Quentin's life confirmed that the man was the worst kind of preacher who considered it his God-given right to enforce his authority on others, even when he drove his niece to suicide, to say nothing of how he discreetly abused Phil. As a result, no tears are shed when Quentin dies due to foolishly ignoring the warnings in a sauna trying to sweat the non-existent poison out on the advice of a neighbor, only to pass out and overheat, especially after Matt and Xanatos note that he somehow forced Puck to abandon Phil and his mother in his "Pietro" disguise and forced the trickster into a geas preventing him from even acknowledging that Phil is his son, something that Xanatos notes likely played a role in his design of his "Owen" persona being not inclined to fall in love to avoid feeling that kind of pain again. Even his own congregation was glad to see him go when Xanatos stirred up rumors to force him to retire and move to Florida so he could buy and destroy the home in an attempt to break the geas.
• The Atoner: In the aftermath of "Bushido", Yama had to spend three moons living in exile from the clan with his wings bound, and returned to find that not only has Sora dismated herself from him, but his wings are in bad shape from being bound like that. He has been accepted back into the clan, but it's noted that he still has to deal with guilt and blame over what his actions nearly caused.
• Badass Preacher: Father Sullivan, who lost an eye in Vietnam and becomes an important ally and confidant to the clan, discussing religious matters with Hudson and providing Elisa with someone to talk to about her concerns regarding her relationship with Goliath.
• Been There, Shaped History:
  • As well as Macbeth's obvious role in history, he mentions at one point that he met the model for Gustave Courbet's Standing Female Nude in France in 1848.
  • In-narrative, Demona (unintentionally) caused the destruction of a Japanese gargoyle clan when the hunters attacked it looking for her, although a human rookery-keeper escaped with a few eggs, including Demona's own child.
  • Oliver Grimm's immortality and fixation on power led to him causing the Black Death, basically for no better reason than a hatred of cats, and funding the Church just to use its more negative beliefs to wipe out magic-users who might threaten Grimm's own power.
• Better the Devil You Know: Essentially Anne’s justification in "Deadly Moon" for calling for the Were-Fox when she realises their kidnapper was Thailog, as the Were-Fox only might be a problem depending on Fox’s level of control where Thailog is a definite threat.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • The Labyrinth clan gargoyles might be friendly and childish, but they were still "trained" by Thailog and Demona for their first few weeks of existence; Delilah in particular is capable of quickly arming herself and using any gun presented to her, and once shoots a Quarryman in the head by using her tail to turn his own gun against him.
  • The German gargoyle Heinrich may be a writer who suffers from claustrophobia, but when enraged he managed to take out Thailog, albeit by attacking the clone from above via dropping straight down twenty feet.
• Big Damn Heroes: In “Deadly Moon”, just as Anne, Bethany and Alexander are being tauntingly threatened by Thailog, Heinrich crashes down onto Thailog from above, knocking him out and helping to get the children to safety.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: In “Flesh and Stone”, the characters all explicitly learn that Hudson is Broadway’s father, but while the humans are preparing to celebrate the discovery and Angela is excited at the news, the rest of the clan aren’t that bothered about it given the lack of importance gargoyles place on blood relationships. At the same time, while the clan aren't that bothered about their own blood ties, they recognise how this can be important to humans, such as asking why Anne's husband isn't joining the family in living in the castle.
• Boom, Headshot!: In "Violent Night", Delilah shoots a Quarryman in the head with his own gun by turning the weapon on its bearer with her tail after the Quarrymen attack kills Brentwood.
• Bouquet Toss:
  • Elisa catches the bouquet at Talon and Claw's joint wedding to Maggie and Dana.
  • At Goliath and Elisa's wedding, Bethany catches the bouquet with her magic because Anne's explanation causes Bethany to assume it's another game of 'Magic-Catch'; the characters all hide the role Bethany's magic played in that catch by claiming Elisa just overdid it when throwing the bouquet.
• Brain Bleach: When Brooklyn nearly mentions his brief fling with Demona, Angela vows that she will do her best not to think about the implications of that statement as it’s obviously disturbing for her to picture one of her potential mates involved with her mother.
• The Bus Came Back: “Escape from Avalon” ends with Tom, Princess Katharine, and the Avalon gargoyles "returning" to Castle Wyvern.
• Busman's Holiday: Downplayed; while the Manhattan Clan encounter a few problems while on vacation in New Orleans, in general they are able to focus on their original purpose of finding mates for Brooklyn, Lexington and Hudson (as well as Broadway finding a new mate and Angela acknowledging who she really wants).
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Applies to a degree to Bethany Marsden; the clan and their human allies are aware of her fey heritage and her powers of prophecy, but her youth means that she sometimes only sees parts of the future and her mind translates them into metaphors that she can more easily comprehend but others may not initially understand, such as foreseeing Jackal and Hyena’s attack on Wyvern via the elevator shafts as ‘bad robots’ digging into the castle from underground.
  • A more standard example occurs when Malibu tells Talon about Heinrich; as Heinrich’s claustrophobia prevented him following Malibu into the Labyrinth, Talon initially assumes that Heinrich was just Malibu’s imaginary friend until he met the new gargoyle directly.
• Cast from Lifespan: The tales of the New Orleans clan reveals that the Praying Gargoyle works by taking life-essence from the gargoyle using it to cast particular spells; reference is made to one gargoyle shaman being aged almost a century when he used it for a particularly elaborate spell. It is speculated that this was intended to ensure that the statue could only be used in the most dire situations when all non-magical solutions had failed.
• Chekhov's Gun: "Hudson's Musings" opens with Hudson retrieving the head of the statue Xanatos used to 'impersonate' Hudson during the events of "The Price". Later on, when the kidnappers of "Deadly Moon" demand a gargoyle's head as part of their ransom, the gargoyles use that stone head to give the impression they're going along with part of the kidnappers' demands.
• Closest Thing We Got: When looking for a doctor for the Manhattan Clan and the clones, as opposed to the nurses currently working in the Labyrinth, Xanatos eventually hires a vet who has expressed an interest, as the gargoyles' wings in particular raise concerns that a human doctor wouldn't be qualified to deal with.
• Collateral Damage: At one point, it's revealed that at least one person on the flying fortress died when it was attacked by Goliath and Demona, but apparently that person had a bad heart and just about any kind of shock would have killed him.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In a flashback to the day Elisa spent with Jason Canmore when the clan believed her dead, she explains the nature of Demona's immortality to Jason and explicitly states that if the Hunters just stopped going after Demona, it might have given Macbeth the chance to catch up to her and kill her himself, as opposed to Demona being constantly on the run.
• Crazy-Prepared: Xanatos has an automated process involving extensive background checks of anyone working closely with him or his family, so any new applicant would normally have to wait weeks to start; the only exception to this is Anne Marsden, who started straight away as she was personally recommended by Owen, and even then the actual background check was still carried out even if Xanatos didn't need the information (although he still studied the available details on the childhood of Anne's deceased husband).
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: When Demona is invited to join the Ishimura Clan, she has to remember to give the impression that she's struggling to learn Japanese, as she doesn't want to reveal her true history to anyone.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Basically ignored when evidence emerges that Marie intended to drug Brooklyn to get his scent-marker; Brooklyn is so shaken at just the idea of that happening to him that he basically has a panic attack and the rest of the clan surround him to assure him that he's safe, Hudson in particular affirming that he wouldn't let that happen.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap:
  • Although the Xanatos family are now basically on the gargoyles' side, the geas Oberon placed on Puck means that they don't have access to magic to deal with bigger problems. Since Owen can only use magic to teach or protect Alexander, he can only act to protect Alexander under specific circumstances, such as if the castle is attacked during the day, and often he cannot provide more immediate magical assistance as Alexander isn't old enough to understand how to perform such a spell and there's no way Owen can justify performing that spell as Puck.
  • Due to a deal with the Illuminati, Xanatos is prohibited from doing more to help the gargoyles than just giving them a place to sleep during the day, when he was contemplating such plans as officially hiring Broadway as a chef to create legal precedent for gargoyles as people. That said, the Illuminati also impose prohibitions against the Quarrymen trying to attack Xanatos in other areas, and affirm that Xanatos can still defend the gargoyles if they’re attacked while at the castle.
• The Dreaded: In “Deadly Moon”, despite having only heard stories about Thailog, Anne is terrified the moment she realises she’s facing the aforementioned clone rather than Goliath.
• Driven to Suicide: When looking into the history of Philip Marsden, Xanatos uncovers evidence that Philip's mother Penny committed suicide when Philip was twelve years old because she couldn't take her uncle's abuse any longer (although she took precautions to ensure that Philip could get away from his uncle and make his own life).
• Due to the Dead:
  • In “The Times, They Are a-Changin’”, the Clan and their allies have a funeral for Phil Marsden, the deceased husband of new ally Anne Marsden, who was never officially declared dead because he was turned to stone and smashed during the Lost Nights. During the funeral, Father Sullivan expresses regret that he couldn’t meet Phil based on Anne’s stories of how Phil became a good man despite his difficult childhood, and Goliath delivers a vow on Phil’s grave that appears to essentially proclaim Anne and Bethany as having been adopted into the Manhattan Clan.
  • "Mating Games 7" looks at the New Orleans clan helping the Manhattan clan organise a memorial for Brentwood, Lexington's clone, after he is killed trying to protect Delilah from a Quarrymen attack.
• Dull Surprise: A good description of Owen's response in "Deadly Moon" when the Were-fox tears open his cell door; rather than question how this happened or show fear for his life, Owen simply asks "Mrs Xanatos" if the children are well.
• Dumb Muscle: Wolf is clearly considered this; when Lexington is trying to work out who kidnapped Owen, Fox, Anne and the children, he immediately dismisses Wolf as a candidate because the man is so stupid he'd never be able to come up with a plan his intended targets wouldn't have seen coming a mile away.
• Entertainingly Wrong: When some of the officers on the Gargoyle Task Force make contact with the German gargoyle Heinrich and befriend him, they decide not to tell Matt about Heinrich because they think Matt's such a straight arrow he couldn't keep a secret, when Matt's already met the Manhattan Clan and learnt some of their secrets...
• Everyone Has Standards: Father Sullivan may be a Catholic priest, but he tells Elisa of a time that he encouraged a woman to get a divorce from her husband because the man was so abusive he was certain she’d be killed otherwise.
• Evil Cripple: Technically Thailog; he's still physically capable of walking and talking, but considering that he's permanently lost the use of his wings after one sustained damage in his last fight with the clan, Thailog has lost a significant asset if he ever challenges other gargoyles to a direct physical confrontation.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • In "Deadly Moon", after Thailog has apparently killed Fox and shot Anne in the leg, he spends a few moments just swiping at Anne with his claws just because he finds it funny, which gives German gargoyle Heinrich the chance to drop down onto Thailog from above.
  • Word of God reveals that Oliver Grimm caused the Black Death based on nothing more than his hatred of cats; he created the idea of cats being a sign of witchcraft, and without cats plague-infected rats swept over Europe.
• Failed a Spot Check: Elisa initially assumes that the New Orleans gargoyles consider the entire clan unmated because they aren't acknowledging her bond with Goliath, but Goliath soon clarifies that they just hadn't registered it. At this point, the only members of the New Orleans clan to have met the Manhattan Clan were Adam and Rebecca, and Adam's half-human status means he has a poor sense of smell and Rebecca had been fawning over Brooklyn so much that Goliath observed he wasn't sure Rebecca had even noticed his color, never mind his scent. Goliath later admits that he fell victim to a similar oversight when he met the Avalon clan, as he just wasn't paying attention to their scents as he was already subconsciously aware of his feelings for Elisa and so wasn't looking for another mate.
• Family of Choice: Over the course of the series, the gargoyles acknowledge that they now consider the Xanatos family and certain key associates to be just as much part of their clan as the gargoyles themselves, with the affection reciprocated to such an extent that Bethany refers to ‘Unca B’odway’ at least once.
• Fight Off the Kryptonite: In "Deadly Moon", Owen makes it clear that he was willing to at least attempt this if Thailog came to get him and Anne after the children were taken to safety. Although Owen was bound by iron shackles, now that he had concluded that Thailog’s plans would endanger Alexander, he estimated that he could withstand the agony of turning into Puck long enough to destroy Thailog if the gargoyle tried to attack them before help arrived.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: After the gargoyles are exposed as real, Xanatos spends a considerable amount of money to create a wide range of authentic-looking gargoyle costumes for Halloween. This has the obvious advantage of allowing the clan to go out in public so long as they paint 'seam lines' on themselves (and Brooklyn only has drinks with straws as his beak would be too obviously real), and Xanatos also creates subtle 'flaws' in the costumes compared to real gargoyles so that the Quarrymens' attempt to frame the gargoyles for assault is swiftly exposed as fake.
• Foreshadowing: "Mating Games 11: Changing the Rules" opens with a series of brief flashbacks looking at the various hints that Lexington is bisexual and attracted to Robert as well as Rebecca.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: A lesson in soul transference for Alexander results in Hudson and Bronx switching bodies, which causes problems for the clan as Alexander isn't old enough to learn spells that swap unwilling hosts and Bronx has decided that he likes having hands and speech. After spending time trying to stop Bronx going out and prevent Hudson attacking his own body in a rage, the clan are able to convince Bronx to be himself, but Goliath observes that they should make sure in future that Bronx feels more a part of the clan, as most of his issues were because he feels unappreciated and ignored in his true form.
• Fuzz Therapy: While Yama was in exile from the Ishimura clan, he adopted a cat he found as a kind of therapy animal, naming it "Manekineko" after a Japanese tradition of cats bringing luck.
• Godzilla Threshold: While Fox, Anne, Bethany, Alexander and Owen are held prisoner by Thailog in “Deadly Moon”, Fox is forced to try and trigger her Were-Fox state on purpose when out of options to escape before Alexander in particular risks starving to death or getting an infection.
• Good Counterpart: They just made a brief cameo in the original series, but Kimberly T expands on the concept of the People for Interspecies Tolerance to establish them as a good counterpart to the anti-Gargoyle Quarrymen. From their two brief scenes in the show, they are expanded into a group of college students actively working to protect and befriend gargoyles just because it's the right thing to do, with no secret agenda or ulterior motive; Macbeth gave them some financial assistance to get off the ground with their first couple of meetings, but the actual idea was all the members' own.
• Gracefully Demoted: Plans for the unwritten future fics reveal that Gabriel would have basically accepted this once the Avalon clan come to Manhattan. While he was the clan leader back on Avalon, he accepts Goliath and Brooklyn's position as Leader and Second respectively once the gargoyles all relocate to Manhattan, but Goliath appoints him Master-At-Arms, which is just below Brooklyn in authority and gives Gabriel the responsibility of keeping the peace and dealing with minor problems before they can escalate to a level that would need Goliath and Brooklyn's attention.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Adam, the leader of the New Orleans clan, is revealed to be the first known human/gargoyle hybrid, with extra fingers, a more human facial appearance, a comparatively limited sense of smell, and the ability to remain ‘awake’ during the day if he makes a conscious effort (although he notes that he has only remained awake for a full day once, and that required such a great effort that Adam would prefer not to do it again; most of the time Adam will turn to stone as soon as he falls asleep).
• Handicapped Badass: Thailog has basically become this after his last battle with the Manhattan Clan left him with a crippled wing. Admittedly, he's still the size of Goliath with the business skill and criminal intellect of pre-reformation Xanatos, so 'handicapped' might be a misleading term, but when the majority of his regular foes are capable of flight, the fact that he's permanently grounded does give them a key potential advantage in future confrontations.
• Healing Factor: It's confirmed that Demona's immortality includes healing from other injuries; at one point she is able to reattach her own severed wing just by holding it together, and reflects that she's even re-grown shattered wings in the past (although that takes longer and is obviously more painful).
• Heel Realization:
  • The series basically opens with Xanatos having had one as he realises that he wants to set a better example for his son, driving him to try and help the gargoyles be accepted by the modern world and atone for his past; Xanatos is directly confronted with the consequences of his old crimes in “Unsolved Mysteries” when he meets Anne Marsden, a resident of the Labyrinth who lost her husband, her best friend and her job due to the Lost Nights and the Big Sleep.
  • "The Times, They Are a-Changin’” gives one to Demona of all people, as her first meeting with the People for Interspecies Tolerance when they approach 'Dominique Destine' for corporate funding forces Demona to acknowledge that there are humans who want to befriend gargoyles just because it's the right thing to do, particularly when she overhears one of the P.I.T. members (who didn't know about her history) say that ‘Destine’ has clearly spent so long hating that she can't stop because it would force her to face that her life has been pointless. She experiences a more personal version of this when she joins the Ishimura Clan and learns the real fate of the Japanese clan she once joined; she assumed that the humans had betrayed that clan to the Hunters, but later overhears a story that reveals that the clan's human allies were simply overwhelmed by their enemies, and a human even helped to save a rookery keeper and a few of the eggs.
  • In “Mating Games 7: Moments of Silence”, the entire Manhattan Clan have a relatively minor one of these when they all only realize how poorly they've treated the Labyrinth Clan after Brentwood (Lexington's clone) is killed by the Quarrymen, prompting Lexington to regret never taking time to get to know his clone beyond being a weird 'not-him' and the other gargoyles vowing to spend more time with their own clones when they return.
• Hero of Another Story: In "Deadly Moon", when Halcyon Renard’s drone fleet are searching for the kidnapped Fox, Anne, Owen, Bethany and Alexander, one of the drone operators ends up intercepting another hostage situation in the city as he assumed it might be one of the people he was already looking for. Despite this detour not being relevant to the main effort, Halcyon reflects that it’s good they were able to help that family, and promotes the drone operator in question for his quick thinking.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: Demona has apparently tested and confirmed that she can't even kill herself if she wants to (she at least once tried to kill Macbeth to kill herself in the process, but at the time he was trying to get people to safety and so he couldn't let her do that). During her grieving drunken bender, she explicitly thinks at one point that she's getting drunk precisely because killing herself isn't an option.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: After Demon has her My God, What Have I Done? moment (see below), she retreats to her mansion and spends the next few days getting so drunk she would have died of alcohol poisoning without her immortality.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Basically applies; Wolf is shown at one point contemplating what gargoyle flesh might taste like if he had the chance to go after the clan again.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: A good description of Thailog in “Deadly Moon”, as he attempts to force Puck to swear allegiance to him while unaware that Puck is bound by various other oaths that prevent him making such a pledge.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy:
  • Demona muses at one point that one attack against her by the Hunters in the past led to her miscarrying her current egg, as she was killed while "egg-heavy" and her immortality only brought her back to life rather than the egg.
  • "Violent Night" sees the Labyrinth gargoyles attacked by the Quarrymen while Delilah is out with them, resulting in Brentwood sacrificing himself to protect Delilah and her unhatched egg.
• Incompatible Orientation:
  • Features in the New Orleans storyline regarding Robert, a gay male gargoyle who lost his human mate a year ago. Considering the relatively small size of the gargoyle breeding pool, some of his clan are prejudiced against Robert, who is so gay that it's impossible for him to be aroused by women. He and his best friend in the clan, Rebecca, once attempted to mate as they were genuinely fond of each other, but the experience just ended up embarrassing for both parties. After they and Lexington become a mated trio, Robert and Rebecca are only able to mate after Lexington helped get Robert suitably aroused.
  • Some of the New Orleans clan accuse Robert of being interested in Brooklyn, but it's made clear that Brooklyn has no interest in males even if he always treats Robert as a friend; it's even mentioned that back in Wyvern, Lexington once made a pass at Brooklyn (Lexington is bisexual), but accepted that his rookery brother wasn't interested in males and the whole incident was basically forgotten about.
• Inferred Holocaust: Defied regarding the "Big Sleep" caused by Oberon; Anne Marsden is a particular example of what happened when Oberon put the city to sleep, as her best friend and roommate died in a six-car pile-up and the nursery where Anne worked was destroyed when a truck crashed into it (fortunately nobody was in the nursery at the time). The Xanatos family did their best to atone for the Big Sleep by making anonymous donations to the hospitals to pay for any injuries caused by the event, but couldn't risk doing any more without raising questions about the reason for their actions, which would lead to Alexander's magical potential being exposed.
• Internalized Categorism: Possibly the best description of Thailog, who notes that he doesn't even consider himself a gargoyle, but just a businessman who happens to turn to stone during the day.
• Interspecies Romance: Goliath and Elisa, naturally; “The Times, They Are a-Changin’” focuses on the preparations for their wedding. When the Manhattan Clan visit New Orleans, Goliath and Elisa in particular hear the story of David and Anastasia, the male human and female gargoyle who were the parents of Adam, the only known human/gargoyle hybrid.
• It's All About Me: The final chapter of “Escape from Avalon” affirms that this is the driving force behind Oliver Grimm’s actions, as he is a part-Fey who has spent centuries trying to destroy the entire gargoyle race because of a prophecy that he would die while being watched by a half-blood ‘child of stone’.
• It's All My Fault: After Brentwood's death, Brooklyn in particular spends time berating himself for how none of the clan accepted their clones, even though all of the gargoyles were uncomfortable around their clones and it's unlikely just one of the clan reacting better to the clones would have changed anything.
• Jerkass Realization: Angela of all people has one at the conclusion of the New Orleans arc, when she is confronted about her treatment of Broadway and is forced to recognise that she truly loves Gabriel, the clan leader back on Avalon, and was basically trying to make Broadway more like him.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: After Elisa reveals that Brentwood is dead and she basically tricked the clan into leaving New York for a time after a group of Quarrymen were killed, Goliath spends the next couple of nights away, hunting and getting drunk, until Brooklyn claims that Elisa is planning to outright leave him to force him to get over his issues. After Goliath drunkenly flies out to forgive Elisa, once he's sobered up he informs Brooklyn that neither of them shall ever speak of the night's events again, which Brooklyn understands is Goliath's way of affirming he forgives Brooklyn's lie but would prefer not to be reminded of how he basically humiliated himself.
• Like Brother and Sister: This dynamic is all but explicitly established between Alexander Xanatos and Bethany Marsden, the daughter of the Xanatos's new nanny Anne. With Bethany being a part-fey like Alexander who is observed as having exceptional magical potential, Owen/Puck suggests that Anne be hired as the family nanny so that he can teach Bethany while giving Alexander his lessons in magic, and Xanatos mentions that Bethany can also "teach [Alexander] about sharing and all that sibling stuff". When she is introduced to Alexander, Bethany asks if he will be her little brother, and while Anne tells her that Alexander is only like a little brother, there is never any sign that everyone else does not basically consider the children siblings. Bethany is often shown accompanying Alexander on outings with Fox and Anne, and when the gargoyles first learn that the Marsdens are moving in, Lexington explicitly observes that Alex needed 'rookery siblings'.
• Locked Out of the Loop: An extract from an unwritten future fic reveals that Xanatos and Matt would be the only two people to work out that Puck was Phil Marsden’s father (and thus Bethany’s grandfather). Xanatos has done enough to satisfy himself that there is some kind of geas preventing Owen from explicitly acknowledging his relationship to Bethany, so he and Matt worry that making their own knowledge public may trigger the geas and some unpleasant side-effects, and decide not to tell the gargoyles or Elisa anything because they would be too emotional about the issue and may give their knowledge away even if they don’t mean to.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Puck uses this to great extent; not only does he enjoy the chance to take Alexander on certain excursions that he can 'disguise' as educational outings for the boy, but he even expands his teaching duties to include Bethany Marsden, the part-Fey daughter of the Xanatos' new nanny. As Owen reasons, the binding on his powers so that he can only teach or protect Alexander doesn't prevent Bethany sitting in on Alexander's lessons and participating in them, and he can see enough of Bethany's raw magical talent to recognise that she has great potential for magic, so has faith that she'll do well in the lessons even if she won't surpass Alexander.
  • A scene from an unwritten future storyline shows Demona use a more ruthless variation of this loophole by threatening Alex's life unless Puck restores Gabriel’s voice (the mate of Demona's daughter Angela, Gabriel is currently cursed into silence and worried that the curse would be passed on to their egg). Puck concedes, but Owen notes after Demona's left that this only worked because her immortality meant that going along with her demand was easier than trying to protect Alex by killing her.
• Luke, I Am Your Father:
  • "Flesh and Stone" sees Hudson reveal his own conclusion that he's Broadway's biological father when Broadway needs blood donors and the only safe candidates are Broadway's clone and any direct relatives. While subsequent tests confirm the relationship, most of the gargoyles aren't that bothered about the discovery given their lack of interest in such things, and Broadway and Hudson soon confirm that they don't particularly want their existing dynamic to change. Despite that, they spend some time talking about Hudson's lost mate (and therefore Broadway's mother), as she died so long ago that Broadway doesn't really remember her, Hudson appreciating the change to think back on her again.
  • The final chapter of “Escape from Avalon” reveals an interesting variation of this; Xanatos and Matt Bluestone discuss Xanatos’s deduction that Puck was the father of Philip Marsden, making him Bethany’s grandfather, but for reasons they are unaware of, Owen/Puck is bound by an oath that prevents him directly revealing his relationship to Phil to anyone.
• Magical Nanny: Invoked but basically defied; Anne Marsden is hired as a nanny for the Xanatos family because of her magical ties, but while her deceased husband inherited magical potential from his unknown father and her daughter is a potential magical powerhouse, Anne herself has no magical abilities (she has Fey somewhere in her family history, but too far back for her to manifest any magic herself).
• Metaphorically True:
  • Played with when Brooklyn is first telling the gargoyles’ story to the People for Interspecies Tolerance; to protect knowledge of Alexander’s magical potential, Brooklyn is asked not to reveal the extent of the clan’s past vendetta with Xanatos as it is otherwise hard to justify how they became allies after Alexander’s birth. With that in mind, Brooklyn tells the truth about the circumstances of the clan being cursed, but claims that Xanatos purchased Wyvern and broke the curse basically as the result of a drunken bet rather than part of a deliberate plan to trick the clan; in this version of events, the clan and Xanatos spent months being hostile towards each other because Xanatos’s security staff made a bad impression when the gargoyles unexpectedly woke up on that first night and most of Xanatos's security forces were too quick to attack later. Brooklyn also claims that Demona was frozen with the rest of the clan to explain how she exists in the present rather than revealing her immortality to explain how she took The Slow Path.
  • Also plays a part when the Xanatoses explain their history to Anne; while they admit to Anne that they were the reason for the Lost Nights and the Big Sleep, the events of the Lost Nights are presented in a manner that conceals Xanatos’s more selfish intentions when he helped Demona cast the claimed longevity spell. Later on, Owen similarly bends the truth when talking with Anne about matters such as the history of the Pack or the Steel Clan; he truthfully informs Anne that the Pack received their augmentations from "someone called Coyote" without revealing that Coyote was a robot duplicate of Xanatos, and observes that Goliath has expressed a poor opinion of the Steel Clan without explaining that this is because Goliath first met the Steel Clan in a fight.
  • Demona basically relies on this when she meets representatives of the Japanese clan, allowing them to believe that the massacre of her original clan occurred relatively recently and she was just one of the survivors rather than explain her full role in events.
• Misplaced Retribution: When Demona meets various other Gargoyles who have already met Vinnie, he recognises her from her and Goliath's attack on the flying fortress. To avoid explaining the extent of her past vendetta, she claims that the attack on the fortress was basically an example of this, lying that she had reason to believe the person responsible for the destruction of her clan was on board the fortress.
• Mistaken for Gay: After Elisa marries Goliath, some of her colleagues at the police spot the clues necessary to guess that she has a secret relationship, but assume that she's hiding a marriage to another woman rather than a marriage to a gargoyle.
• Morality Pet: Anne essentially serves as one to the Xanatos family, as her presence helps Xanatos, Fox and Owen face and consider the moral consequences of their past and present actions; at one point they abandon a plan to create a fake explanation for a few missing Quarrymen who were killed by Demona because Anne doesn’t want to put anyone else through the uncertainty she experienced when Phil went missing.
• Mr. Exposition: Brooklyn serves as this to the People for Interspecies Tolerance in “Faith, Hope and Love”, as Macbeth suggested he talk to the group to give them a better understanding of gargoyle history and culture (Brooklyn being specifically chosen for the obvious factor that he’s the least human-looking member of the clan and the more subtle reason that he’s better at improvising and bending the truth to keep certain details secret).
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Xanatos is fully aware of his past sins, but he is basically hit in the face by them all over again when he first hears Anne Marsden’s history, as she lost her husband, her best friend, her job and a place to live because of Xanatos’s own actions (albeit nothing he intended to do).
  • After Dominique Destine's first meeting with the People for Interspecies Tolerance, realising that there are humans out there who genuinely want to help gargoyles just because it's right, and overhearing one of them reflect that 'Dominique' only knows how to hate and can't stop herself because otherwise she'd have to admit that she's lived a pointless life, Demona becomes horrified at her new understanding of herself.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Bonus scenes in "Escape from Avalon" reveal that Xanatos speculates that this attitude is what motivated Owen Burnett/Puck to help Xanatos protect Alexander from Oberon; one of Puck's previous mortal identities was permanently separated from his own child and he didn't want to see Xanatos suffer the same fate. After Alexander's birth, a chain of events led to Owen meeting Anne and Bethany Marsden, who he realised were his daughter-in-law and granddaughter through his now-deceased son, and while Puck cannot acknowledge that he is Bethany's grandfather he nevertheless enjoys the chance to teach his granddaughter magic.
• Named by the Adaptation: Claw's original name is revealed to be Clarence Herbert Tidwell; when the rest of the characters learn this during his wedding to Dana, Elisa muses that it's no wonder he didn't want anyone to know that.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The final chapter of “Escape from Avalon”- looking at some of the plans the author had for later stories in the series- reveals that this was the case for events in another storyline; Oliver Grimm, the financial backer of the Quarrymen, attempted to stage a home invasion with criminals wearing gargoyle costumes to suggest that the gargoyles had killed a Quarryman lieutenant and his family while the true gargoyles were hunting for kidnapped allies. Fortunately, the lieutenant in question kills the invaders before realising they were just humans in disguise, which gives the rest of New York 'evidence' that the gargoyles' previous home invasions may not have been genuine, thus preventing the clan losing any of the good will they've gained with the average New Yorker to date.
• The Nose Knows: Gargoyles' sense of smell plays a key part in various interactions;
  • It is particularly noted that once a gargoyle couple have mated, they retain a scent marker that clearly marks them as such, and it requires a deliberate effort to remove that scent.
  • Goliath's scent recently altered after he and Elisa moved on to a physical relationship, and even gargoyles unfamiliar with Goliath and Elisa acknowledge that he is mated once given a chance to properly smell him. When the New Orleans clan first meet Goliath, they only miss that he's mated because Adam's hybrid nature leaves him a weaker sense of smell and Rebecca wasn't paying close attention to Goliath.
  • A gargoyles' sense of smell also has more mundane uses; after Alexander and Bethany were rescued from the kidnapping, Martha can confirm which of their toys belong to which child with just a quick sniff.
• Not Proven: Discussed regarding the apparent evidence that Marie attempted to drug Brooklyn so that she could get his scent-marker; there is no conclusive proof that she stole the LSD and intended to use it to get Brooklyn in a suggestible mood, and there are alternative explanations for the anomalies such as Marie having grown up with humans who'd see a picnic as romantic rather than a standard hunt, but there is enough suspicion to guarantee that Brooklyn won't accept any food or drink from Marie in future.
• Not So Above It All: Despite Goliath objecting to others placing bets on his relationship with Elisa, he isn’t above placing similar bets regarding whether Lexington and Rebecca will come back from a temporary banishment with mated markers (they don’t).
• Oh, Crap!: More specifically, "Deadly Moon" has an "Oh, shit" moment combined with Mood Whiplash, when Anne thinks that she, Alexander and Bethany have been rescued from their kidnappers by Goliath, only to realise that the gargoyle facing them is actually their kidnapper, Thailog.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Robert, one of the New Orleans clan, has a deceased human mate whose name was Philip, just like Anne Marsden's deceased husband.
  • In “Escape from Avalon”, one of the Avalon clan is revealed to also be named David after he comes to New York, prompting Xanatos to observe that people are unlikely to have difficulty telling them apart as the gargoyle David is an almost dwarfish orange figure.
• Proud Papa Passes Out the Cigars: In "Flesh and Stone", the clan's human allies invoke this when they get confirmation that Hudson is Broadway's biological father, although the gargoyles' relative indifference towards biological relationships means that Hudson doesn't make that big a deal about it.
• Pardon My Klingon: A non-alien example of this; when Elisa informs Brooklyn that Thailog and the Were-Fox are back, he says something in Gaelic that Elisa is fairly sure is some form of expletive.
• The Peter Principle: Matt muses at one point that Elisa isn't likely to rise higher in the department because while she's a skilled detective, she's not very good at dealing with the press in a diplomatic manner, with publicity meetings being a key part of a police captain's duties.
• Posthumous Character:
  • Phil Marsden, Anne’s husband and Bethany’s father, has been dead since the Lost Nights, but his influence is a significant factor throughout the series.
  • Likewise, Robert (one of the New Orleans clan) was previously mated to a human, Philip Roberts, who died a year ago in a car accident.
• Pragmatic Hero: Xanatos has basically become this by the time the series starts; the gargoyles generally trust him as an ally, and he wants to set a better example for his son, but he's still more willing to take the more ruthless option than other characters. The best example of this features in "Deadly Moon"; aware that the kidnapper knows about Owen's fey nature and Xanatos's alliance with the gargoyles, Xanatos muses that he can't risk the case going to trial and intends to ensure that said kidnapper (who at the time Xanatos assumed was an unknown human) would get shot before he could even be officially arrested.
• Pragmatic Villainy: This is the sole reason Demona didn't fire or kill Sevarius when she got rid of Thailog's other potential moles in Nightstone; while aware that she can't fully trust Sevarius, she needs his genetics expertise.
• Prophecy Twist: Word of God confirms that this would apply to Oliver Grimm's fate; his vendetta against gargoyles is based on a prophecy he was told centuries ago that a half-blood "child of stone" would see him die by a practitioner he was having burned at the stake in his crusade against magic users that could detect his hybrid nature, which he interpreted as meaning that he would be killed by a human/gargoyle hybrid. However, as planned, the half-blood child of stone is actually Bethany Marsden, who is part-fey by heritage and would have just been officially adopted by her new stepfather Matt Bluestone, and she only sees Grimm die in the sense that she's present at his death, as Grimm would actually be killed by Matt after he tries to take Bethany hostage.
• Resurrective Immortality: "Housing Issues" reveals that this is basically how Sevarius has survived some of his near-death experiences in canon; he did die, but he's developed a system that transfers his memories into a clone of himself if he's killed.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: "Housing Issues" reveals that a villain-on-villain example of this was used by Demona against Thailog; while Thailog survived the aftermath of the battle that saw the debut of the clone clan, during the couple of days it took Thailog to heal from most of his injuries Demona fired all of his moles in Nightstone and withdrew all the money from his accounts while booby-trapping every safehouse she knew about, leaving Thailog with only a few Swiss bank accounts to provide resources.
• Rules Lawyer:
  • When a Quarryman infiltrates the castle and seriously injures Broadway's wing, Xanatos provokes him into leaving the city and not reporting his near-success to the Quarrymen by visiting the man in his cell and talking about his family in a manner that implies that the gargoyles would eat his children without ever actually saying that they would do such a thing, observers musing that Xanatos is very clever about never making an explicit threat.
  • “Deadly Moon” features Owen musing that Thailog is intelligent enough to be one. When Thailog tries to make Owen/Puck agree to an oath binding him to Thailog’s service for a year, Owen knows that his existing oath of a lifetime’s service to Xanatos and the geas binding his powers wouldn’t stop Thailog using the necessary loopholes. As Owen muses, Thailog could easily kill Xanatos to end the lifetime of service, and he could certainly threaten Alexander to guarantee that Puck will use magic to aid his own plans.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: To be exact, Xanatos decides to avoid an uncomfortable situation by discreetly ordering Owen to leave New York for a time. When Xanatos learns from MacBeth that the 11th Annual Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest is taking place on a certain night, he immediately recalls how Owen delights in attending the readings and regaling Xanatos with the winning entries afterwards. Xanatos is so determined to avoid having a repeat performance that he spends the next few hours trying to find a crisis in the company that's just big enough to justify ordering Owen out of New York (in this case, all the way to India) on short notice for a few days, preferring to deal with the expense of the trip and the disruption to his usual schedule if he doesn't have to deal with abysmal poetry readings over the next few weeks.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • While most of Xanatos's personal staff know about the gargoyles, only Anne Marsden knows about Alexander's magical potential and Owen's true nature as Puck.
  • Vinnie, the human who has had irregular run-ins with the Manhattan Clan, meets Demona while assisting the Japanese clan during their visit to New York, and becomes one for her when he learns about her human identity and is given a job at Nightstone Enterprises.
• Secret Secret-Keeper:
  • Rebecca only learns that there was a witness to her and Robert's attempted mating on the night of her mating ceremony with Robert and Lexington; Isabel reveals that she happened to be in a tree above them during that encounter, and never told anyone because it was already embarrassing enough for all concerned parties.
  • On a more serious note, only Xanatos and Matt are aware that Puck is almost certainly Philip Marsden's father and Bethany's grandfather; Xanatos has done enough research to satisfy him that Puck was banished from Phil's life in some way that prevents him from ever acknowledging the relationship, and asks Matt not to tell anyone else because he doubts the gargoyles could keep such a secret and he's worried that openly acknowledging the relationship would have some negative effect on Owen.
• Secret Test of Character:
  • In “Mating Games 10: While You Were Gone”, Brooklyn is dismissed as second in favour of Broadway, but it turns out to be a test of the remaining females in the New Orleans clan, to determine if any of them just wanted Brooklyn for his position rather than himself. When Isobel and Yvette still show interest in Brooklyn while Marie transfers her attention to Broadway, that affirms Brooklyn’s decision to take Marie off his list of potential mates.
  • In “Escape from Avalon”, someone (likely Owen or Xanatos) basically gives one to a family that kept an eye on Phil Marsden as he was growing up; when a messenger came by to tell them Phil had been officially declared dead, while the messenger could inform the couple that their mortgage had been paid off, he had also been given tickets for a free trip anywhere in the world that he was only to give the couple if they asked about Phil’s wife and daughter.
• Seers: Bethany Marsden's Fey heritage initially manifests as this; Owen realises her magic because she has the gift of True Sight, allowing her to see the true nature of others, such as immediately recognising that the clone gargoyles and Maggie are good people or able to see Puck's aura while he's in disguise as Owen when most full-blooded fey wouldn't be able to do so. It's noted that True Sight is often accompanied by the power of prophecy, making Bethany aware that Matt Bluestone will be her new father upon her first meeting with him, as well as alerting her to Hyena and Jackal's imminent attack on the castle.
• Self-Serving Memory: After Demona's saved from the Quarrymen by a group of college students, she tries to make herself a victim of this by telling herself that the students thought she was just a human in costume, but can't forget that she would have been first seen running on all fours, that the students explicitly yelled "Leave that gargoyle alone!" or that they seemed surprised that she was able to thank them.
• Sensor Character; MacBeth explains at one point that his bond with Demona allows them to sense each other's pain (and other physical changes) if they're within five miles of each other, although they won't have an exact sense of where the other is in relation to their own position. Macbeth also notes that he sometimes has trouble 'translating' Demona's injuries based on the differences in their bodies (for example, it's harder for him to be aware of injuries to Demon's wings as he doesn't have wings himself), but they will each experience death if the other dies no matter how far apart they are. They also "share" the experience of certain non-fatal conditions in particular circumstances; Macbeth spends most of a week dealing with Demona's hangover because she's so incredibly drunk in his proximity.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • All of the main characters are fully supportive of Goliath and Elisa’s relationship, with Angela even asking if she should call Elisa ‘Mother’ (although Elisa assures her that she doesn’t expect that, considering that Angela’s basically the same age as her).
  • Basically everyone who knows them is in favour of Matt and Anne getting together even before they learn that Bethany has been calling Matt ‘Daddy’; the only reason the couple don’t start dating in-narrative is because Anne feels it’s too soon after Phil’s death for her to be involved with someone else already.
  • “Mating Games 12: Game Over” reveals that Ursula was this for Martha and Broadway, as she recognised that Broadway would be a good match for her daughter to the point of subtly sabotaging his current relationship with Angela and pushing him together with Martha.
• Shipping Torpedo:
  • It's revealed that after Yama was sent into exile, Sora deliberately dismated herself from him, through an elaborate ritual involving bathing in salt water every night for a month to remove his scent marker, for not telling her of his plans with Taro. Although none of the other clan members approve of this decision as doing so is disrespectful of Yama when he isn't even present to witness her decision, they agree to leave the matter alone, although the clan leader also orders that none will approach Sora about becoming her new mate until Yama returns to learn what has happened for himself.
  • "Mating Games 12: Game Over" features Elisa confronting Ursula about how she subtly manipulated events to break up Broadway and Angela and turn Broadway’s attention towards Martha. Elisa acknowledges that Ursula’s efforts could have only worked in the time available if Broadway and Angela’s relationship already had problems, so she won’t bring it up on her own, but warns Ursula that she won’t hide the truth if Angela realises what happened on her own and comes back from Avalon mateless.
• Shoot the Dog: The final chapter of “Escape from Avalon” reveals that the Canmores would have such a moment before their deaths; Jason finds Jon and is able to convince him to abandon his vendetta against the gargoyles, understanding that his brother founded the Quarrymen due to his own self-loathing for his perceived role in Jason’s paralysis, but Oliver Grimm kills them both and frames the gargoyles for it to provoke the Quarrymen into a mass attack on the clan during the day.
• Side Bet: In "Revelations of the Labyrinth", when Derek confesses that the reason they're planning a double wedding is because Maggie is pregnant, Peter Maza gives his wife Diane ten dollars, stating "You win. We're having a grandkid with wings after all."
• The Slow Path: Oliver Grimm is a part-Fey born almost a thousand years ago who has a degree of immortality in the form of him aging based on the rate that time passes in Avalon, basically aging a day for every twenty-four days, so he appears to just be in his forties despite being almost a thousand.
• Spanner in the Works: In the end, Thailog’s plans in “Deadly Moon” are derailed by the unexpected factor of Heinrich, a gargoyle newly-arrived in New York from Germany who saw Thailog tormenting Anne and the children and literally landed on Thailog from above.
• The Speechless: It's established that Alexander's bond with Puck has accelerated his mental development so that he's able to understand far more than a normal baby his age would be capable of, but despite this his age means that Alexander still lacks the fine motor controls to actually talk himself. He once possesses Anne (with her permission) so that he can vocally cast a spell, but this is an exceptional circumstance and he otherwise remains a mute infant. Fox has speculated that when he does start talking, he'll be able to jump straight to complete sentences rather than single words.
• Struggling Single Mother: Anne Marsden is introduced as this, having lost her husband in the Lost Nights and her best friend and job in the Big Sleep, she and her daughter finding themselves in the Labyrinth because she had nowhere else to go.
• Superpowerful Genetics: After realising Bethany Marsden's magical potential, Owen takes a second look at Anne and observes a faint trace of fey about her. While Anne's fey heritage isn't enough for her to manifest any magic of her own, combined with Phil Marsden being an explicit half-breed with Puck as his father, Bethany is a potential powerhouse; not quite as powerful as Alexander, but still with great potential.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: In “Flesh and Stone”, when Elisa leaves a taped message to inform Goliath of Broadway’s injury, the message yells at him not to fly off to the castle himself but wait to hear the rest of her instructions, Goliath sheepishly acknowledging that Elisa knows him too well as he was about to do just that.
• That Came Out Wrong: Invoked when Puck introduces himself to Anne and explains how some fey have conceived half-human children and then left them; Anne immediately assumes that Puck is telling her that Phil did this to her and Bethany, and Puck is quick to assure her that from everything he's heard Phil didn't choose to leave them even if he regrets to confirm that Phil is truly dead.
• Theme Naming:
  • The New Orleans clan are all named after Catholic saints and martyrs, a tradition started when the clan lived in Notre Dame as a way of staying on good terms with the local priests (Adam is "officially" named after a Benedictine monk, but it's known that he's really named after Adam from the Garden of Eden given his status as the first known human/gargoyle hybrid).
  • The Avalon clan were mostly named after Biblical figures, but once Katharine, Tom and the Magus ran out of virtuous female names from the Bible they turned to other sources, such as Artemis or Hippolyta.
• Thunder Hammer: The Quarrymen are an obvious threat to the clan, with their hammers capable of shattering a gargoyle in stone sleep and the weapons' electrical capabilities making them a further threat in battle at night.
• Token Good Teammate: From a certain perspective, Anne is this to the Xanatoses and the gargoyles’ other human allies living in Wyvern. While Xanatos, Fox and Owen are trying to be better than they were, Anne is so genuinely nice she often points out details that the Xanatos family might not have taken into account because they just aren’t used to considering how others will react.
• Translator Microbes: Invoked; Brooklyn reflects that a language spell was apparently cast on the Manhattan Clan when they awoke in the present day, as they even think in modern English rather than the Gaelic they spoke back when they lived at Wyvern, to the point that they have to make a conscious choice to speak in Gaelic.
• Trauma Conga Line: Anne Marsden’s introduction makes it clear that she has gone through one through being collateral damage of Xanatos's actions; her husband was killed in the Lost Nights as one of Demona's victims when he went out before sunset while she and Bethany stayed inside, and during the Big Sleep, her best friend died in a car accident and the daycare centre where she worked was destroyed when a truck crashed into it, forcing Anne onto the streets with her two-year-old daughter because she couldn't afford a place to live. After Anne ends up living in the Labyrinth while Xanatos tries to find the residents jobs as part of his plans to reform, Xanatos vows to ensure that she gets top priority when looking for job opportunities even before the Xanatoses end up hiring Anne as Alexander’s nanny.
• True Companions: By the time of "Deadly Moon", while the gargoyles and Elisa have some residual issues with the Xanatos family and their associates (such as Elisa speculating that Puck might just let "Owen" die and flee back to Avalon), Xanatos makes it clear that he considers the gargoyles and their allies people he can trust. After uncovering Thailog's role in the abduction of his family, Xanatos notes that he now has to suspect everybody as only a few people had the level of internal access necessary to stage this kidnapping, but he has no doubt that he can trust Matt Bluestone and the new arrivals from the New Orleans clan.
• Unknown Relative: A minor example; while Demona is staying with the Ishimura Clan, she overhears a story that reveals that an egg she laid during her time with a Japanese clan early in the nineteenth century survived that clan's destruction and was taken to the Ishimura Clan. From that detail, Demona realises that Sugi, the only red-haired gargoyle in this clan, is actually her own granddaughter or great-granddaughter, although she recognises that there's no point sharing that revelation.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Thailog reflects that he's only bothered to learn the basics of hand-to-hand combat, as he prefers firearms and more subtle manipulations, but considering that he's the size of Goliath he doesn't typically need more than the basics.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: It's noted that those closely associated with the gargoyles have grown so used to them that they don't always register it.
  • At one point Elisa is writing a report based on observations made by the clan while they're on a stakeout, and Matt has to point out that she's using terms such as focusing on the scent of the suspects that wouldn't make sense for a human to even notice.
  • After Matt meets Martha of the New Orleans clan, he's so used to gargoyles that he just thinks of the female gargoyle in the modified housedress with the friendly manner as "nice lady" and takes a moment to realise that other people might see Martha and think "monster".
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Wolf's fate is left open, as it's mentioned he was broken out during a recent unauthorised prisoner transfer, but Lexington doesn't dig into the matter at the time as he knows Wolf is too stupid to be responsible for the current threat.
• What You Are in the Dark: In “Mating Games 10”, when Goliath declares that Brooklyn has been dismissed as Second in favour of Broadway, Isabel and Yvette still showing interest in Brooklyn assures him that they’re interested in him for himself rather than his rank.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Invoked when Xanatos reveals that the credit card he's created for the Manhattan Clan is under the name 'Garth Goyle Wyvern'.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Even after Demona has made a vow to move on from her past vendetta against humans, she is driven to a killing rage when she sees a team of Quarrymen going after a group of gargoyles that includes a little girl.
  • Later, Thailog not only took a little boy hostage and killed him once the boy’s father was no longer useful, but planned to kill Alexander Xanatos when he was still barely an infant, and contemplated selling Bethany Marsden to a child pornography ring just to make a few more thousand dollars even when making a plan for a hundred million dollar ransom.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Invoked when Anne questions the reliability of the Steel Clan robots (See A.I. Is a Crapshoot above); Owen explicitly states that they aren't a "big-budget movie" and assures her that the Steel Clan have always adhered to their programming.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Brooklyn receives a few of these during “Deadly Moon” when he blames himself for mistakes such as Castaway nearly shooting him during an assault on his current hotel room or not realising that Thailog was the kidnapper. As Isabel in particular points out, they had no reason to believe Castaway would have had time to properly defend a hotel room he only recently started staying in, and there was every reason to believe that Thailog was dead, so Brooklyn's actions were accurate based on what he had every reason to believe at the time.
• You're Not My Type: A downplayed example with Brooklyn and Martha during the dating nights in New Orleans; neither are unpleasant towards each other, but they each acknowledge that they’re just not each other’s type. Martha ends up with Broadway instead.

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