About the Gargoyle

(Answers to "Pearl", "Night", "Pearlnight", "Pearlknight", Sanguine, the 'Goyle, and anything related to intimate relations with the undead...)

I am Pearlnight, but you can call me Pearl. I'm an autistic queer and webcomic author since the winter of 2021. My primary work is the webcomic Dancing with the Dead, it's a 1970's period piece and my love-letter to the vampire genre.

Besides drawing the comic I dwell in the quieter crevices of the web, play obscure computer games and dust off old sites with the company of my queerplatonic partner (and hellhound!), RockCandy. My art is derived from my love of darkness, my experiences with mental illness and my own repressed feelings. I invite you to interpret me through my pieces; and make of me as you will.

Oh, and that creature there...

That's Sanguine, they're a glittery Gargoyle and my author avatar. I created them in late 2020, and their design's not changed since. Well, if you ignore the previous colour scheme. which was a sunset-inspired red-to-purple. Sanguine is gendervoid like I am, and uses the same pronouns I do. They also have a personality like mine, albeit exaggerated to comedic effect. My friends know me as a conscientious, albeit obsessive individual. I come from a history of perfectionism and unease about my existence. Sanguine is this tenfold, even in their very design. The colour blue often symbolises sadness. Their horns are not a proud crown of bone and keratin, but instead they point downwards. They don't have claws, but big, plushlike paws. Even their eye markings give them a somewhat morose expression. Sanguine is a performance of self-awareness as much as they're an idealised form.

I made them a Gargoyle because I have a long history of liking chimeras, hybrids and other such creatures. I find more conventional species too limiting for my sort of personality. I also picked a gargoyle as I'm a huge fan of gothic art and I felt this was the best way to encapsulate that. I don't envision myself as a vampiric entity, but more of an onlooker, a prop to the vampire set. Vampires are too much for me to see myself as one. They're big, bombastic creatures with planet-sized egos and centuries' worth of mental baggage. Instead, I'm more akin to a Castlevania enemy or a creature you'd see in a line of 70's monster toys. I'm side dressing, I'm an observer rather than the main feature. It's modest, and my friends would say overly so, but it feels right for me. It's what suits me the most as a goth.

You may notice a distinct absence of the words "fursona", "furry" or even "funny animal" as I speak. I'd describe myself, and Sanguine here, as furry-adjacent at most. The answer for that's simple, back when I was a furry, I couldn't relate to other furries. I felt like something else. But then...depicting myself as a human, or even with much of a grounded form is too unbearable for me. It's not who I am, to present as anything less than fantastical.