This serves as a fitting end to the original Gargoyles’ series, as well as a good prequel to 2298.

Though I’ve no doubt you and the others have many things in store for later in the main timeline, this does do a good job of standing on its own without the need to know too much about the past and leaves many things open to interpretation.

I’d say the one thing I’m not fond about is Demona’s scheme. It was a repeat of the Season 2 finale, and casualties aside, not enough differences to make it stand out as its own thing.

I do like how Demona’s punishment is a nice tie-in to her nightmares, particularly the one where she witnessed Angela and Elisa walking together in the park.

I know you guys still have more to tell, and I look forward to reading all of them.

This was a beautiful story. It had great writing, the characters were themselves but also grown, and the emotions were powerful. I cried for three minutes straight during the funeral scene. And Goliath died an honorable and heroic death protecting, like a true gargoyles. And the way this story ends with Angela stepping up, Demona being punished, and gargoyles being a step closer to having a peaceful future with humans was very satisfying. Although this was just a one-shot, this is still one of the best Gargoyles fanfiction I have ever read.

I've known GregXB for several years. We first met in Transformers fandom, and from thereon, he became a big name in the Gargoyles fandom.

He's written a fanfic called Rhapsody, one that I'm very impressed with.

I suppose it doesn't count for much, rating a friend's work high, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

Like with most fandoms, I've fallen out of reading Gargoyles fanfic because I get so fixed on my particular ideas of what characters do and sound, because I hunger for "original flavour" stories instead of doing something wacky and outrageous.

With Gargoyles in particular, I worry about the treatment of Demona, who's one of those great villains that it's apparently so hard for people to get right, just because she has some sympathetic motivation. I also dislike attempting to make the gargoyles more "human", by putting them in modern clothes, having them form nuclear families, and fitting into human society and filling all its niches with no trouble. *sigh*

Greg is even more annoyed with these things than I am, so of course "Rhapsody" avoids them. His is a short, solid story where a lot has gone on, but the narrative keeps flowing, instead of relying on clunky exposition to bring everything up to code. It's an epic in excerpt, something that's been a long time building but is also completely its own.

I won't tell you what happens, but it's a story that says there are no easy answers. It's intelligent, and firmly rooted in canon. Also, Demona is a bitch. :D

I liked it.

I don't like fanfiction: More often than not, it's wish fulfillment. I'll confess to being an immense fan of the Power Rangers franchise, but I love it for what it is. It is no masterpiece, no Shakespeare, no massive work of brilliance or even coherency. But what turned me off of Power Rangers fanfic (and indeed, most fanfic) was the tendency to make a franchise everything it wasn't. I wanted to see the Green Ranger kick a retarded Putty in the stomach, not read some poorly written, quasi-Gundam "epic" that threw everything out that made the franchise unique and instead tried to turn it into everything it wasn't.

That's a giant horror of fanfic. You start to learn that countless fanfic authors don't truly love the franchise they strike the pen to, and if they do...they don't understand it. Character arcs become lost. Plotlines become muddled. Unique, thematic touches no longer exist. You get Demona coming to dinner. And that doesn't fly for any franchise, because the beauty of fanfic should lie in the idea of themes and concepts being both true to the franchise but being taken in directions totally new...but altogether fitting.

I liked this fic. Liked it a lot. I'll start off with what struck like the strongest chunk of the story: Things change, and not just the gargoyle society. All the little cameos, as nerd happy as they made me just for their very existence, served a fundamental purpose.

"Griff's an ambassador now? Angela's LEADER? Holy crap, it's Nashville!"

Every single glimpse we get at the characters evokes a sense of change. Evolution. Things are different now. And it's a fitting portrait, since we're also granted to see the one thing that will change gargoyle culture forever. The Gargoyle Minority Protection act is a grand event, but it only seems to complement the overall change in the unfortunately unseen arcs of these characters from canon to now.

For all the change, however, Demona stays exactly the same. That's interesting, and not even in the sense of most of us reading this fic knowing Demona seems to never change. Throughout history, it's the extreme actions of those who never change that make the rest of us realize we have to. Demona became her own worst enemy and it culminated here. She got to play an instrumental part in helping gargoyle kind...but in the one way she hated. It's a perfect kick in the shins and a logical advancement of her character arc.

I also got the sense that Rhapsody employs a similar narrative device that Hunter's Moon did: Ending things right where they began and starting a new beginning in the process.

The Wyvern Clan's new lives in the modern world, Goliath finding his true love, and just about everything I couldn't capture (both good and bad) all spiraled out of the massacre at Castle Wyvern.

A new beginning, new oportunities, and a significant moment that will shift the lives of the younger gargoyles (with more possibilities I couldn't capture prior to 2198) all are born out of the tragedy of Goliath's death.

The massacre of Castle Wyvern came out of the misaimed, but ultimately well intended actions of the Captain of the Guard. The tragedy of Goliath's death occurred within the well intentions of the warped, destroyed mind of Demona.

In both cases, one of pure heart and one of dead heart, what was meant to help the gargoyles ultimately wounded them and left the humans without significant pain...but again still, through this pain came new lives.

Things come full circle. This isn't typical fanfiction. **** yes.

It also echoes a mantra of Weisman's own comic book continuation. Several events we know: we know Goliath dies and the tragedy brings out the GMPA. We know Brooklyn takes the mate Katana. We know Lexington becomes a businessman.

Except...Demona kills Goliath. Except Katana has a personality we get to see. Alex has a fully pro-garg outlook (naturally, but seeing it).

There's knowing something and then there's knowing the details. We knew the double date was going to happen, but we didn't know Brentwood would get a character arc and Thailog would get a ticket to the Illuminati.

We knew there'd be a Redemption Squad, but we had no idea the type of humor (Tazmanian Tiger!) and tragedy (a horrible suicide) it would bring in its wake.

All signs point to Staghart as Lexington's mate, but that doesn't make the events that we can only hope will transpire any less dramatic or fascinating as fiction. Only moreso: Our anticipation for events cloud us to the fact they always encompass more than just that core moment.

A singular event has multiple ramifications. That's why the comics are exciting and excellent, and that's why this fic just ****ing works. It's also what's practically the hallmark of Garg fiction nowadays...us big fans know what's coming, but then when we see it we realize there was so much we couldn't have possibly anticipated.

I could count on one hand how many fanfics I like. This is one of 'em. Good stuff.

I liked it.

I love the great iconic images here. Demona killing Goliath with a Quarryman hammer. Xanatos's fate, a shell of a life for someone who sought eternal life as an end in itself. Demona alone again.

Demona comments about humanity's perversion of religion, but uses the image of the gargoyle race as an instrument of terror and fear; adopts the weapon of one of her greatest foes, and then complains that Angela brooked gargoyle tradition by not letting her speak at the wind ceremony. What a nerve. And creepily, we leave Castaway being blessed so the great tradition of using the good to pursue evil agendas continues. If the saying "write what you know" is to be believed, Greg obviously knows all about perversion. ;)

It's a great Demona story, and I think a very credible prediction as to how her character may wind up, but I think "Rhapsody" also deserves credit for being a truly great Angela story. With Demona there are obvious pitfalls but Angela is much more subtle and easy to whitewash. I think here she's got an interesting and nuanced role. She argues for peace while Demona agitates for war; while Demona plots to 'protect' her daughter, Angela is ordering the gargoyles to protect even and especially the Quarrymen. And it makes so much sense emotionally to me that the endgame of her relationship with Demona isn't hatred but... resignation. Moving on, putting Demona behind her, leaving her alone. It's a much more final, and fitting, ending. Gives me chills.

Funny Demona tells Goliath about the Atlantean crystal. If she could just learn to shut up, she'd probably have had another shot.

I thought the opening blurbs (flashing back to Paris in the 1920s and Saint Damien's in 1996) served as a good establisher. Likewise Demona retrieving the statue in 2056. Right off the bat, we can see that the last sixty years haven't done much to improve Demona's attitudes towards humans and genocide (a welcome departure from a lot of Demona fics).

I also like how we got that moment between Goliath and Elisa before we saw the rest of the clan. And several of those interpretations were well thought out. Lexington and Staghart... doesn't seem very farfetched. And I enjoyed the irony of David Xanatos's fate: He finally lost his battle against one of his biggest fears.

To be honest, I've heard a few people say they wanted more expose, but I felt we got just the right amount here, leaving the large-scale stuff to the imagination (and I know GregX has said elsewhere that there was one thing in pacrticular he didn't want to get into in the story in great detail).

And once again, Demona overplays her hand. It's not enough that she's about to eradicate humanity, she just can't resist giving them a taste. I kind of like how that paves the way for her undoing here, much like how in 1996, if she'd just thrown the vial to the ground without explaining her plan, she'd have been breaking out the champagne and cigars.

I also like the interpretation of the Quarrymen. Jack seems to be as level-headed as his father. And to be honest, we haven't seen too much of the Quarrymen in canon Gargoyles. What we have seen of them in TGC or fanfic usually paints them as vandals. I think this is the first fanfic I've ever read that really paints them plausibly. They leave their hammers out of sight for the protest outside the UN, and when they do take action, it's to save the hostages in the church. The old woman expressing her thanks to Jack towards the end was a very nice touch.

Goliath's death... well, we got a nice bit of foreshadowing from Jack. He vowed his hammer would kill a gargoyle. From that, I had a feeling where it was going. Wouldn't put it past Demona to pick up a Quarryhammer. She's spent several centuries killing with a mace, after all. On top of that, she destroys the crystal at the center of the statue. That, and Demona's brief reaction after the deed is done was interesting. She was probably starting to think it might never happen. Sadly, no one showed up at the last minute this time.

And yes, I'll admit, my eyes got a little misty when I read Elisa's line to Goliath. Hey, my room's not that well-ventilated, and I haven't dusted in a while. ( ;

But seriously, I also felt the Wind Ceremony was just the right length, and we heard from all the key people. I especially liked Fox speaking for her husband, and Thailog speaking from beyond the grave. Also, and this was a small thing I pointed out to GregX, I especially liked how Nashville referred to Brooklyn by name, instead of calling him "dad" or "father."

And I like how the GMPA barely passed. I imagine that a lot of those people joining the Quarrymen were people who had loved ones that were killed by Demona's animated statues. Hey, the Aryan Nation and the KKK still exist today. Just because there's a law against hunting gargoyles, it doesn't mean people can stop hating them. The Constitution still protects the Quarrymen's rights to assembly.

We can imagine she'll probably be trying to make up some excuse that makes sense only in her mind. It's like Angela said, she's her own worst enemy. That's another thing that's been batted around in the CR and ASK GREG, but had never actually been said in a story. Great way to end it.

Great fic. Definitely one of my favorites.

Wow. This is an AMAZING work. Are you sure this isn't a comic? :-)

This is pretty tragic. Damn wonderful. Goliath's death was heartbreaking, but it's nice to see Demona finally locked away.

Are you sure that this is a fanfiction? It's too good to be one.

Awesome story.

Awesome~!

Truly a moving piece. Thank you for writing it.

That was a great story

Was just flitting around in this fandom and came upon this story. Wonderfully done. A solid tale with even a sense of closure for the series itself. Thanks!

This is a truly excellent story (and an excellent interpretation of how to tell a story that has yet been untold officially in the Gargoyles saga) and represents the best of what the entire series was about.

Congratulations on an excellent story.

Just asking here but do you plan to do anymore. Of course there are more that can be explored in the time period leading up to this "day of days".