Perky Goth

Long as you don’t pull a fast one on me or my pals, everything will be peachy keen.

Well her clothes are blacker than the blackest cloth
 And her face is whiter than the snows of Hoth
 She wears Doctor Martens and a heavy cross

But on the inside, she's a happy goth.
—The Divine Comedy, "The Happy Goth"
"There is no 'standard behavior or code of any sort for members of the so-called 'underground', you silly gits! Why, whoever thought of anything so bleeding preposterous?"
—The Perky Goth Manifesto

The stereotypical Goth character, especially in teen shows, is frequently a Snark Knight or a Deadpan Snarker, someone whose dark clothes and grooming reflect a pessimistic mentality. Contrariwise, the Perky Goth, who is almost always female, operates on the principle that dark does not always mean depressing.

She wears the clothes, but her personality is always cheerful and amiable (occasionally approaching Genki Girl territory). Appropriately, this is a Sister Trope to Strange Girl and Elegant Gothic Lolita (the latter referring to an actual subculture mainly popular in Japan), as well as a subversion of the Woman in Black. If she's supposed to be attractive, she has a strong chance of being Raven Hair, Ivory Skin.

While the trope is sufficient to cover both, a character who is to Emo as this trope is to Goth would essentially be a "cupcake emo", which are notable for their pink/black stripes. This is technically a different subculture than emo, but they're closely related and scene can be summarized as "Perky Emo with a little bit of rave culture". Keep in mind that goth culture is reversed on this point just as in some countries the gothic color is white.

Examples of Perky Goth include:

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Anime & Manga

  • Misa Amane from Death Note, who also qualifies as an Elegant Gothic Lolita (if you ignore the words 'elegant' and 'lolita', that is).
    • She does temporarily qualify as Elegant Gothic Lolita, as she's wearing clothes like that when she sings after Light picks her as Kira.
    • Death God Ryuk has elements of Perky Goth.
  • Yugi, the eponymous character of Yu-Gi-Oh! dresses either in all black or in absurdly cute outfits, has wild hair (that's natural) and wears chains, LOTS of leather and dog-collars... Yeah, collars. His monster theme is darkness and black magic and he is regularly possessed by an admittedly evil spirit. None of this stops him from being a pacifist, unbearably cute, friendship-obsessed and a real sweetheart. And cute.
  • Death in the anime Kamichu! has a short scene with the god of poverty. She's a bit beyond perky and well into total bonkers. Or maybe she just knows something we don't.
  • Yamie from Kure-nai, who is at her perkiest when interacting with Murasaki.
  • Another male example: Nekozawa from Ouran High School Host Club. He's the president of the Black Magic Club, is obsessed with curses, and has plenty of fun being generally creepy. Not even the fact that he's allergic to light seems to bother him all that much.
  • The disturbingly cheerful Undertaker in Black Butler.
  • Perona from One Piece and sometimes Nico Robin.
  • Riho Yamazaki, Detective Shido's ditzy secretary, becomes this in Nightwalker. Being a Nightmare Fetishist helps too.
  • Nana Ohsaki from Nana.
  • Mayako Makishima from the Bokurano novels.
  • A disturbing example can be found in Konuma Ryuuko from Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest.
  • Road Kamelot of D.Gray-man.
  • Cirucci Sanderwicci of Bleach.
  • D.N.Angel: Towa looks like an Elegant Gothic Lolita, but has the personality of a hyperactive Genki Girl.
  • Reiko, the first Devil Hunter Yohko villain. In spite of her dark nature, she seems to smile a lot.
  • Sawyer the Cleaner, from Black Lagoon, qualifies. In one scene, when she's explaining that the bad smell in a hotel room is from the ooze from rotting corpses she had to clean up in there earlier, she smiles happily, glad to have made things clear, while everybody around her is busy losing their lunch.
  • Mirajane from Fairy Tail isn't quite "perky" in her youth - she's completely Hot-Blooded. She basically had the same personality as Natsu. However, after she loses her sister she becomes a Yamato Nadeshiko.
  • Stocking from Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt, particularly when eating sweets.
  • Saki Hanajima from Fruits Basket. She looks rather scary, what with wearing black to signify that she is a "sinner" and occasionally threatening people who try to hurt Tohru, but she's awfully nice.
  • Sheliss elleness Zurbach of The Night When Evil Falls.


Comics

  • Gilly Woods from John Kovalic's gamer comic Dork Tower is the quintessential Perky Goth and Trope Namer; along with all of the typical goth mannerisms, she smiles all the time, collects plush animals, enjoys cookies and ice cream, and is perpetually optimistic. This greatly annoys her brother Walden, who is a stereotypical Mopey Goth.
  • Death of the Endless, from The Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman is described by her author as a Perky Goth. She is not just responsible for Death, though; she also gives the breath of life when someone is born. She's pretty much the person you'd most want to see at a stressful moment like that. Her brother, Dream, fills the Mopey Goth niche.
    • Although in stories taking place in earlier eras (read: billions of years ago), Death was a bit of a wet blanket herself before she started spending a few days each century with mortals.
  • Nico Minoru, a.k.a. Sister Grimm, in Runaways. In the beginning, at least.
  • Lex from Gloomcookie, on occasion.
  • The Bride of Nine Spiders from Immortal Iron Fist is sometimes like this.
  • Betty Cooper of Archie actually went goth in one issue (really!), and was still generally rather cheerful. Her two goth friends were even more cheerful than she was.
  • Emily The Strange
  • Nemi is also a snarky, Sarky Goth. Sort of a Garfield Goth, in fact.
  • Lex Luthor's niece Nastalathia in All-Star Superman. Not exactly perky so much as very laid-back and quite fine with her life of villainy as opposed to depressed or moody.
  • Death from the old Joe Kelly run of Deadpool was pretty much a Perky Goth. That or just a plain old death obsessed, somehow corporeal, skeleton of some sort.
  • Dethany Dendrobia of On the Fastrack.
  • Black Betty from Stormwatch PHD.
  • The goddess Persephone (formerly Kore) as portrayed George O'Connor in Olympians: Hades, Lord of the Dead.
  • The Ghoulunatics from EC Comics are dark and morbid, but in a fun and gleeful way.


Fan Works

  • In The Return conversion into a succubus seems to be synonymous with becoming a Perky Goth. Those Two Guys Sam and Naoko choose to dress as perky goth too.
    • Especially Yuki/Nabiki the "cute" succubus.
  • Played very weirdly on My Immortal, where the main characters are mostly depressed but have pretty much the personality of the preps they hate so much.
  • Travels Through Azeroth and Outland has the narrator meet a draenei named Vasalyan, who loves looking at dark and gloomy landscapes. Nonetheless, he's still as joyous as most every other draenei.
    • Felya, a cheery Forsaken priestess, is perhaps another example.
  • Mr. Evil's Original Character "Bloody" Mary Rogers is described as "The most energetic goth girl you would ever meet".
  • Saga in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fic Under The Northern Lights is an example, though she claims that "Goths are posers!", so she presumably wouldn't use the phrase herself. She differs from most of the examples on this page by being a reindeer.

Films -- Animation

  • Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas—although he could also get pretty moody.
    • "... Why does nothing ever turn out like it should?/Well, what the heck, I went and did my best./And by God, I really tasted something swell..."


Films -- Live Action

  • Nora, from "We Are the Night". A happy vampire chick, enjoying her powers.
  • Almost any goth character on Gap.
  • Raven in Cecil B. Demented combines Perky Goth, Badass Adorable, and Cloudcuckoolander in a most intoxicating way.
  • Angela in theNight of the Demons series. She remains pretty perky even after going all evil and demonic.
  • Morgana from Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies was presumably this, until her boyfriend died in the intro.
  • Due to the apparent fetishes/artistic style of the directors, most every character from The Matrix dress in a goth-like manner, but none act the part.
  • Jill from The Dead Matter, who loves nothing more than a good seance, and calls dead spirits with a smile! She's also the most level-headed of the entire group when it comes to logically dealing with the Zombie Apocalypse.
  • A 1950s example: the title character in Cry-Baby, who has a tattoo of a black teardrop dripping from his eye. He's not exactly "perky," but he's generally optimistic despite his surly attitude.


Literature

  • Eve Rosser from Morganville Vampires. She dresses Goth to the hilt, but is almost always cheerful and, when excited, jumps about 'like a demented, goth bunny'.
  • In the Christopher Moore novels You Suck and Bite Me, Abby Normal is determined not to show her perky side to the vampires she meets or to other Goths, but she does let the reader in on her secret.
  • Steven Brust's Dragaera series has two examples:
    • Telnan, introduced in Dzur, thinks like most Dzur warriors (as Vlad sarcastically notes) that black-on-black is a wonderful color combination, but acts like The Ditz.
    • Sethra Lavode might be a better example, dressing all in black and having an unsettling pallor (she is an eons old undead), but is surprisingly friendly. She also has a disturbingly silly sense of humor. In one book, she passes sentence on one of her apprentices for attempting to kill several of her friends, influence the succession of the House of the Dragon, and start a war. The sentence is to strand her in an alternate, desert dimension with shelter, plenty of food and water and a stick, and instruct her to write "I will not interfere with the Dragon Council" in the sand 83,521 times.
      • Wherein hangs the tale: Sethra IS eons old. Having seen so much, there's really only two ways to go, and the other way would either have destroyed her or the world, one way of the other. If there's anyone entitled to live and advocate the sentiment of "Live Here Now", it is certainly Sethra Lavode!
  • Molly Carpenter from The Dresden Files has shades of perky goth, 80's Brit-punk, and BDSM fetish going.
  • Raven Madison from Vampire Kisses, she is a mixure of highly sterotyped goth who listens to Him, Marilyn Manson, and strangly enough The Cruxshadows (Strange not because she's goth, but because most music refences were ones that are what people think goths listen to), wears mostly black, is obsessive over vampires, and is disliked by most people, besides that she acts like any other teenager.
  • Friday the 13th: Carnival of Maniacs had an odd example. Pamela Voorhees possesses a teenage goth named Gloria Sowici (nicknamed Glo). So we end up with a woman with a borderline Tastes Like Diabetes attitude inhabiting the body of girl described as pretty dour and unpleasant to look at. Suffice to say, characters, such as the guy who picks up the hitchhiking Pam-Glo, remark on the contrast.
    • On a related note, Bella Morte (real surname Morrison) from Jason X: Planet of the Beast is a Perky Goth IN SPACE!.
  • Jez from Kingdom Keepers has pale skin and dresses like a stereotypical goth, yet acts more flirty than you'd expect. This could be because she's really being Brainwashed by Maleficent to spy on Finn.
  • Zanna from The Fire Within has pale skin, wears black make-up and black clothes, but is relatively happy and has fun a lot more than normal stereotypical goths.


Live Action TV

  • Abby Sciuto, The Lab Rat on NCIS, pictured above. As Tony DiNozzo put it, she's "A paradox wrapped in an oxymoron, smothered in contradictions in terms. Sleeps in a coffin. Really, the happiest goth you'll ever meet." Unless you try something funny on her or her team.
  • Coreen Fennel on Blood Ties. Vicki Nelson, the acerbic heroine, comments, "No one likes a perky goth."
  • One of the teams on The Amazing Race's 12th season was a pair of dating, incredibly Perky Goths. They got 5th place.
  • The entire Addams Family, are perky goths. However, the perkiest character by far (in the film and television versions at least) is Gomez Addams, possibly the first male Perky Goth in popular culture—if you equate "manic" with "perky".
    • Wednesday Addams averts this, while she does take pleasure in certain activities, her Thousand-Yard Stare and Dramatic Deadpan are pretty much traditional goth. Morticia is also not particularly perky, though she's not the depressed sort of goth.
  • Merton Dingle from Big Wolf on Campus, a chess club nerd turned Perky Goth.
  • God would sometimes appear in the form of a male Perky Goth in the TV series Joan of Arcadia.
  • Richmond from The IT Crowd, who listens to Cradle of Filth and is mistaken for a vampire on his first appearance, but who is generally cheery despite being severely demoted and spending most of his time supervising equipment he can't even identify.
  • Wizards of Waverly Place has Miranda, who is never seen not smiling, yet is constantly referred to as "scary" and says such gems as "I hate corporate America!" (really, Disney? REALLY!?). The perky part is probably to keep her safe and acceptable (also a result of bad writing).
    • In recent episodes, Alex actually qualifies except for having a fashion plate taste in wardrobe.

Harper: (after having had her mind fused with Alex's) You've got some scary thoughts in there.
Alex: Thank you. (giggles)


Music

  • The subject of Kate Nash's Mariella is a misunderstood loner who likes to wear black, but she's also a cheerful little girl who always gets the crosswordpuzzle right.
    • "She marched to her wardrobe and threw away the colour, because wearing black looks mysterious, but it didn't impress her mother...But Mariella just smiled as she skipped down the road because she knew all the secrets in her world."
  • The Birthday Massacre. They even have a song, "Horror Show", that pokes fun at the other kind of goth.

They're getting ugly;
 They're a horror show.
And now we're laughing
Because they'll never know
That they have everything.
We give them all of our own
And they tell us they're sick and they're all alone.

  • Canadian singer Lights, Her appearance and love for metal music would make up the 'Goth' part of this trope, while her own music and personality make up the 'Perky' part. Go figure.
  • Creature Feature. They only sound dark and depressing, but take one listen to any of their songs and tell me they're not having a grand old time trying to top themselves on the What-the-Fuck-o-meter.
  • Emilie Autumn
  • Jennifer Parkin of Ayria is pretty much this, and it shows through her music. Well, except for the sadder songs.
  • The Divine Madness
  • Amy Lee of Evanescence.
  • Type O Negative. They look extremely intimidating and popularized a "doom" sound in music, and they sing tunes about having sweet girlfriends and about silly goth girls with too much black hair dye.

Newspaper Comics

  • Dethany Dendrobia, in On the Fastrack, is a classic example. She's as Goth as it gets, but cheerful, friendly and a real asset to the company---which is how she gets away with seriously non-corporate clothing and accessories under the reign of Ms. Trellis.
  • Lio from, well Lio. He's mute, but his joyous grins and gleeful attitude speak for themselves. He frequently breaks out into hysterical laughter, usually at the outcome of a prank he just pulled. As for the "Goth" part of the equation ... read the comic, but this is a pretty good demonstration.

Puppet Shows


Pro Wrestling

  • Former WCW and now TNA wrestler Sting is essentially this, as he kept the costume inspired by The Crow he adopted during the nWo angle, but has gone back to his former upbeat showman persona.
  • Jeff Hardy, too, has played up this angle in both WWE and TNA. He wears corpse paint and his fans are known as "Creatures of the Night," but he's otherwise fun-loving and full of spirit.
  • Daffney, from both WCW and TNA, was known for deliriously screaming and laughing during her own matches and those of her friends.


Tabletop Games

  • It's implied a lot of Sin-Eaters are like this. They were given the chance to come back from the dead and gladly accepted, so why shouldn't they be happy? Their general culture is one of celebrations and gatherings in the vein of the Day of the Dead and New Orleans funerals.
  • Penny Dreadful from Mage: The Ascension lives and breathes this trope. It's also implied that just as many of the Hollow Ones are perky goths as are traditional ones.


Video Games

  • Lash from Advance Wars is a Perky Goth villain. In the "defeat" conversation at one point in the third game, she even growls, "No more miss nice perkygoth!"
  • Jennifer "Jen" Tate, main character of Primal.
  • Misery from Cave Story—most of the time.
  • Luste Teuber from Rosenkreuzstilette; she also gets Stripperific and Token Mini-Moe bonus points.
  • Sigrun from Dragon Age Awakening is a member of the Legion of the Dead, dwarves who have symbolically died and consider themselves dead to the world. Their normal mindset is quite gloomy, but Sigrun manages to subvert the expectations despite of her dark, tattooed exterior. This is even Lampshaded by Nathaniel who thinks she ought to be a bit more grim to suit the image.
  • Ashlotte from Soul Calibur 4.
  • Nina Cortex from Crash Bandicoot. She's paler than the Addams Family, Darker and More Cynical than Marvel's Death, Yet loves animals and laughs, she has times when she's moody and agressive, but that's because of her Evil scientist uncle.
  • Deconstructed by Morinth from Mass Effect 2, She seems like one of these but is obsessed with dominance, violence and death.
  • Cube from Jet Set Radio counts, though only since the localization of the first game. The Japanese original had her in more traditional skater-punk style.


Web Comics

  • The main character of Buttercup Festival is a perky goth, and embodies perhaps the more whimsical side of the trope.
  • Miho from Megatokyo has been defined by Fred Gallagher as a "perky goth", though she's more of a Little Miss Badass.
  • Crystal from Zebra Girl. She starts out completely bubbly from the get-go, and one day decides to go goth on a lark, without actually changing her personality in any way.
  • Blossom from Rhapsodies (though she's more Industrial Punk than most examples).
  • Amy Fang from Dead Metaphor is a good example. Though she wears death-metal shirts and seems to have an obsession with horror/zombies, she is perpetually perky, energetic and somewhat childish.
  • Dora from Questionable Content. Her transition from "mopey" to "perky" allegedly came before her first appearance, and she's called out on it in an early strip by a member of her former "coven". This same member (Raven) shows up a few weeks later with a job application as a non-gothic Genki Girl.
  • Death in the webcomic Finder's Keepers seems to be this.
  • Subversion: On the outside, Alisin in Fans! is cheerful, fun-loving, and free-spirited, and it's only when you look closely that it's revealed that underneath the perky exterior she's a neurotic, self-loathing and nihilistic mess.
    • In more recent arcs, Aly (she's no longer Alisin) was able to shed her self-loathing, due in large part to the unconditional love of her husband Rikk, and later Rumy when she joined them in a triad marriage, plus finding fulfillment in her job as a nurse in a juvenile cancer ward. She also grew her hair out and dropped most of her goth fashions. In one recent arc, she was held hostage by Keith Feddyg, who told the young patients about her past life, and then killed one eight-year-old who defended her. Aly, bolstered by Rikk and Rumy, was able to say the one thing Keith couldn't bear to hear; "I forgive you."
  • Happy Goth from The Devil's Panties.
  • Vanity Thorn from the webcomic Sequential Art.
  • Esther from Scary Go Round. Her friend Sarah has also become much perkier throughout the comic.
    • SGR actually plays with Goth stereotypes quite a bit overall—Sarah goes a bit Tsundere for and winds up dating the much older Ryan, while Esther and Sarah's friend Big Lindsay is less goth and more of a Class 3 The Big Guy (who is eventually Put on a Bus by getting pregnant). And then there's the odd case of Roxy Postlethwaite, who is supernaturally Changed into a "White Goth"—part banshee, Cloudcuckoolander, all Nightmare Fuel.
  • Marius, Mordred, and Sarah from My Life in Blue.
  • Order of the Stick's Tsukiko. Evil mystic theurge, but she loves what she does.
  • Cassie from The Wotch is a goth and proud of it. Oh, and she always wanted to see a unicorn. Despite her dark fashion sense and outlook, she can almost always be seen fawning over her crush, Robin.
  • Katie and Abby from Weregeek, especially Abby.
  • Silverblue from Jack is very much this by the time she realizes that everything that happens to her in hell is her own self punishment, and no, she does NOT have to watch the same round of musical holes every day if she really doesn't want to.
    • For the sake of completeness, the creator of the character, who uses Silverblue as her Furry Fandom persona, also self-identifies as a Perky Goth.
  • The Dark Lordess Tyfnee from Dumnestor's Heroes, as exemplified by this strip [dead link] .
  • Cherri Creeper, the protagonist of School Bites.
  • Kanaya from Homestuck is an inversion. On her home planet, most residents stay indoors during the day for fear of the blistering sun (and the undead who rise in the morning), and wear nothing but black and gray. Kanaya, on the other hand, comes out during the day (and keeps actual plants in her home) and wears a variety of bright colors... so, for all intents and purposes, she's the goth of her planet.
  • Elliot from El Goonish Shive has a goth female form with its own personality as a part of his cover identity spell. When he assumed it the first time, he was too impressed to be angsty: though later still morphed into its imitation without enforced supernatural angst attached

goth female Elliot (ogling the mirror): The world is cold, but this form is hot.

  • Runie from 200:20 could be considered an excellent example of this as well. The many, many outfits in which she is seen wearing normally involve black colors or fishnets (she is most often seen wearing a something that looks a cross of a Chinese dress with panty hose and knee high boots). Although her attitude might also qualify her to be considered as The Cutie as well.
  • L.A.W.L.S. comic got Autumn The Furry Slayer, who's not of "slitting her wrist to Morrisey's Morosity or something" sort. She's rather kind of fun, in her own loudly and violently crazy way.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court has in Chapter 35 Parley's classmate Lily Cooke (or "Cookie Monster"). She fits the type, between her love of dark colours, visible ex-fairies' influences and Cat Smile.
    • Chapter 49 has even more goth-y Jenny, Jack's new girfriend. While not a Cuddle Bug, she began addressing Annie "my love" on seeing her the second time, and generally is upbeat to the point that upon sudden transportation into Zimmy's warped world, instead of being scared (like everyone else we have seen), she immediately appreciated the beauty of some elements. Jenny evidently practices formal magic with diagrams and spells, unlike more free-form power use of magical creatures, but claims that she's not a witch, "just an apprentice". She has an extra bit of mystery attached, as Zimmy's supposedly Identical Stranger.
  • Gilly from Dork Tower, as mentioned in the Comics section.

Web Original

  • "1-800-Tech support" has Erica who, while into black makeup, mummifying her dead cats and so on, is generally fairly chirpy...unless it's that time of the month.
  • At least one of the hosts from the podcast Lime and Violet alludes to having been one of these in the past, after a teenage stint as a more typical Mopey Goth.
  • The website Suicide Girls (NSFW!) exists to document these women in their natural habitat. And naked.
  • Moria from Gaia Online kind of drifts between this and Regular Punk depending on her characterization. (Though she was a vampire for about a week once, which ranks pretty high on the goth scale.)
  • The writer of this Agony Booth recap declares that most Goths actually are like this, and that Repo! The Genetic Opera gives them a bad name for this reason.
  • Survival of the Fittest has Anna Chase of v4 and Keira MacDonald of the spinoff Evolution. Anna's a little more downplayed on the perky part, and while not a Shrinking Violet, can come off as seemingly rather meek at times. However, she still definitely fits the description. Keira, however, is played completely straight; her "power" is that she coughs up smoke at irregular intervals, for crying out loud!
  • Sara Waite of Whateley Universe appears to be a goth due to her natural coloring, and, as a lust demon, she's rather perky.
  • A Squid Called Zelda, especially since she started wearing black makeup in her movie reviews.
  • Ralis Kahn of Wayside Creation's "Mad Monster Lab".
  • Bones Cloud from Equestria Chronicles. Your friendly neighborhood mortician pony.
  • Youtube vlogger Miss Hannah Minx is probably the most gratuitously perky goth in the whole world, especially in her Jinx and Elvira personas. Example.
  • Ask A Mortician, a Youtube webseries where a licensed mortician cheerfully answers people's questions about death, burial, cremation, and other such things.
    • She has a Crowning Moment of Funny when she, to answer someone's question if it's possible to bake someone's cremated remains into a chocolate cake (no, really, that was the question), she does precisely that with some fake remains (with "Sorry U Died" written in icing). The cake was apparently quite disgusting, and the whole thing was hilariously absurd.
  • GOTH IN RED by CuteEmmy.
  • Cultist-chan by Mr-Culexus. Observe.

Western Animation

  • Lydia, from the Animated Adaptation of Beetlejuice. (Not the near-suicidal Emo kid from the movie, although she did lighten up at the end of the movie, and new wardrobes are expensive.)
  • Brittany Taylor in the Daria episode "Ill". Jane Lane mentions about Brittany the next day to Daria.

Daria: Look, I'm sorry about last night.
Jane: Aw, forget it. It was a rare opportunity, getting to hang out with Brittany in a grunge club, Although her hair did leak onto my shoes.
Daria: You're sure that wasn't her brain?
Jane: No, there was too much of it. Any idea what caused this so-called rash?

  • Jinx from Teen Titans.
    • Perfectly opposite to the darker Raven. And given Jinx's Heel Face Turn at the end of the series, one wonders if they manage to get along now.
  • Gwen from Total Drama Island dresses in Goth style and makes the occasonal snide comment, but is otherwise a normal, friendly teenage girl.
    • Somewhat Lampshaded in "Total Drama Drama Drama Drama Island" in which she shows pictures of her Goth friends back home, who really make her look tame by comparasion.
  • Vanessa Doofenshmirtz of Phineas and Ferb...whenever her dad's not around to embarrass her.
  • Ditto Triana Orpheus in The Venture Brothers, in sharp contrast to the unrelenting weirdness surrounding her home life.
  • Creepie Creecher from Growing Up Creepie.
  • Debbie of American Dad seems to have an obsession with death and the dark side, but for the most part seems very friendly and well-adjusted.
  • Shareena from the shortlived animated series Detention.
  • Ruby Gloom, her ilk, and the people who wear her merchandise. Okay, not Misery, but that's probably because bad things always happen to her, and things around her.
  • Danny Phantom: As mentioned above, Sam Manson is very clearly one of these. By outward appearance, she's your stereotypical Goth girl. But she's actually quite happy with the way life is! It generally appears as though Sam considers herself a Goth because she likes the style... or because she wanted to rebel against her parents.
  • Carl Squared: Ironically not Carl Crashman's sister, Chloe, but her boyfriend Damien.
  • The 1999 direct-to-video Scooby Doo movie, Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost, features "The Hex Girls", a rock-band trio of friendly Goth girls. They identify themselves as "Eco-Goths", are deeply involved with environmental causes, and the lead singer's Wiccan background becomes key in dealing with the titular Witch's Ghost.
  • Count Duckula, on his own show at least.
    • He's mostly this in Danger Mouse as well, being a Harmless Villain who only wants to make it big in show business rather than a genuine threat.
  • In Xiaolin Showdown, Jack Spicer is this role.
  • Serena from Downtown is definitely this.
  • Miko Nakadai from Transformers Prime is totally this.
    • Though she's more punk than goth.
  • Princess Luna from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, although it should be noted that she is neither "perky" nor "subdued" in her communications style at first. Instead she is a Large Ham.

Real Life

  • Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson built an entire career out of being cheerful, sexy and dark. The character she was an Expy for, Vampira, was also sexy, but otherwise a more "traditional" style of Goth.
  • As one website owner maintained, Salvador Dalí. Think about that. It makes sense.
  • Photophobia didn't bother the late Church of Satan founder Anton Le Vey, either. After he got rolling, the witty religious rebel played off and played jokes on, off, and with his own image and reputation to a level you'd expect out of (irony noted) the Devil. This was even noted in a interview with him prior to his death undertaken by the pornographic publication High Society magazine.
  • Voltaire. No, no, not the eighteenth century French author; Voltaire Hernandez, the twenty-first century songwriter, author of humorous perspectives on being a Goth, and occasional stand-up comedian. That Voltaire. He also does music for the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, so that makes him doubly cool.
  • Tim Burton.
  • The Lady of the Manners, webmistress of the Gothic Charm School.
    • Who, although she'll probably never admit to it, has shown some distinctly mopeygoth leanings in the past.
    • She's also the real life inspiration for Gilly.
  • This t-shirt.
  • Lee Press-On and the Nails, a Gothic Swing band. No, seriously. I'm not making this up.
  • Grey DeLisle (the voice of Sam Manson).
    • She more than abuses this trope, going into "Are you sure she's really goth?" territory. Seriously, she wears red lipstick and very, very girly dresses all the time...
    • And a hundred other characters across multiple shows.
  • Noel Fielding is pretty much the Trope Codifier.
  • Christina Hendricks in high school.
  • Taylor Momsen
  • Arguably Avril Lavigne, she's more punk than goth but definitely fits the perky part.
  • And, of course, just like her NCIS character, Pauley Perrette (pictured above).


Other

  • In the Monster High toy line, young vampiress Draculaura fits this trope to a T. Her new (really new, 15-days-old new) friend Frankie Stein really belongs here too.
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