Webcomic / Damaged Goods

Damaged Goods, full title Damaged Goods: A Topographical Guide to War in the Dolore Region, is a Webcomic created by Cecil. Described as a "lesbian adolescence tragedy", Damaged Goods is an ongoing fanwork of Homestuck.

The story follows its original troll cast in a region of Alternia called Dolore, along the Tyrian Northwest. All in all, it's a pretty okay place to live. Unfortuately, a war has been instigated following the attempted assassination of the region's current ruling Prince. Several trolls are conscripted into battle without really being told of the stakes, including Alternia's hyper-violent militarized postal service, the courieradicators.

Sicely Nohell, a reluctant and cranky soldier with a chip off their shoulder, happens to have slept in the day the news breaks.

The work is currently on its second book, and is ongoing.

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Damaged Goods contains examples of:

• Acrofatic: Keddie is very fat, but she's absolutely no slouch when it comes to dexterity in war.
• Action Girl: Most of the girls in comic count, either being in active service in the military or having learned combat simply from living on the violence-riddled world of Alternia.
• Alliterative Name: Scarie Scores. Also the two ponies mentioned in the intermission, Sirius Starlight and Sunspot Speckle.
• Ambiguous Gender: While many of the cast are explicitly nonbinary, their gender tags in their introductions are more abstract than typical nonbinary terminology. Sicely's simply says "none"and Belfor's says "crone", whereas Keddie's and Scarie's seem as though they filled out the tags themselves, with "I HARDLY KNOW 'ER!" and "GROSS!!!!" respectively.
• As the Good Book Says...: Belfor quotes Ezekiel 7:4.

CT: i will not look upon you wiTH pity, i will not spare you. but shall i repay you in accordance to your conduct, and T He abominations among you.

• Author Appeal: Magical girls, cowboy westerns, and political satires.
• Badass Adorable: Kirbey counts, being a twelve year old magical girl who can hold his own in fights.
• Badass Bookworm: Belfor has her own personal library and is absolutely no slouch in a fight.
• Bad Boss: Keddie means well, but she's so abrasive, dismissive, and self-centered that she's more of an imposition to her employees than an effective mentor.
• Baddie Flattery: Belfor occasionally changes her tune and tries to flatter/guilt trip Sicely and Anthea.
• Bad Liar: Kirbey is a comically bad one. Strangely, people still believe him.
• Batman Gambit: Anthea and Belfor have conflicting ones. Anthea provokes Belfor into attacking Sicely, firmly entrenching Sicely into Belfor's conflict on a personal level. Belfor's manipulative tendencies and clairvoyance means she has her fingers in a lot of different pies.
• Baitand Switch: In Book One, all character selections are this way, presenting you one character and then actually being another... Except for the last one, which plays it straight as another Bait and Switch!
• Berserker Tears: Belfor has to hold back tears after she flies into a psychic, fourth wall-breaking rage.
• Bilingual Bonus: Sound effects and non-plot critical information are rendered in the Alternian alphabet, and not all of it has Translation Convention, leaving a bonus for those willing to go through the trouble of translating it.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: One side of the war effort includes Belfor, Scarie, and AA, warmongering highblood aristocrats. Another side of the war feature the couieradicator company, who while trying to stop Belfor from destroying their home, still mention that serving in the military of an oppressive war state isn't all that much better. That's not even getting into independent players like Anthea or Tricar, whose motives are partially or wholly unknown.
• Blind Seer: If the stained glass depictions can be believed, Belfor's Ancestor the Cathedra Revelate covered her eyes and was also responsible for writing the clown version of the Book of Revelation.
• Blood from the Mouth: Belfor vomits what looks like blood into their sink.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The comic asks the question about why wars are fought, and what brings a character to the battlefield. The characters' motives run the gamut of morality, from the realistic to the nonsensical to the comical to the revolutionary.
• Blue Blood: CC, AA, Scarie, and Chibin, are all both literally and figuratively, though so far only AA is pompous. CC laments the responsibility, and Scarie mostly uses it to be a playground bully.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Scarie is petulant, vindictive, bossy, and a bigot. Chibin as well, to a lesser extent. Even Kirbey can be teasing and mischievous.
• Broken Ace: This is the conceit of Sicely. They're a competent, intelligent cowboy who can keep pace with a purpleblood in a fight. They also have an incredibly low opinion of themself, blame themself for their own death, and cover up their flaws with their hypercompetence.
• Brutal Honesty: When anthea deigns to be honest, this is her modus operandi.
• Butch Lesbian: Sicely and their mentor, Keddie describe themselves as butches.
• Butt-Monkey: Jotzen is constantly the punchline to everyone's jokes and she can't seem to have anything go her way.
• Cast Full of Gay: Everyone in Damaged Goods is a member of the LGBT community, with the majority of them being lesbians.
• Cats Are Magic: Belfor is a very magical witch, and their lusus is a leopard covered in purple eyes.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Belfor speaks like this, sometimes saying "fuck" up to three times per sentence.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: The courieradicators and similar parties respond to war summons not with fear but with frustration at being inconvenienced.
• Courier: The main conceit of the lowblood soldiers.
• Cowboy Cop: Keddie, literally and figuratively.
• Creepy Child: Scarie.
• Creepy Cute: Scarie is a four-eyed Mad Scientist supervillain with a violent temper. She's also a 12 year old girl who constantly has a cat smile.
• Creepy Good: Anthea is trying to stop Belfor's plans, but she tends to weird out and alienate her peers through incessant nagging and farcical anodyne politeness, Dissonant Serenity and menacing habits.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Anthea was impaled on her own swords.
• Cryptic Conversation: Due to Anthea's indirect manner of speaking and general mysterious air, combined with her propensity towards lying, conversations with her tend to come off this way, especially when she's trying to out-manipulate Belfor.
• Damsel out of Distress: Anthea plays up her Damsel role, but she's privately a major player in the conflict and is possibly orchestrating a lot of the events that occur, for whatever reason.
• Dark and Troubled Past: All of the characters have had their lives touched by conflict and pain, influencing their decisions. Belfor in particular has had a horrifically abusive childhood, having grown up within a cult that forced her to kill her friends.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Cheron is a troll with creepy cursed eyes and is a potential Hero of Void. However her employ to Belfor is through blackmail and extortion and she's not a bad person.
• Dead All Along: Anthea, and also Sicely.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Several.
  • Keddie is one of the Drill Sergeant Nasty, showing that her abrasive, bossy tendencies are more likely to leave her soldiers poorly prepared and lacking in self esteem, and sending them off to come of age in this state gets more of them killed.
  • Anthea is one of jadeblood fantrolls, often portrayed as the Token Good Teammate and Only Sane Man. Anthea is shown using her caste's stereotypes to lower people's guard, resenting the pseudo-safety her caste provides, expressing irritation in false-honor of her duty, and betraying people's trust in her. She also Averts being the Team Mom, intentionally keeping her distance.
• Dirty Business: Keddie points outright to Sicely that the job sucks, but it's got to get done.

TT: W:3 DONT GOTTA S::33 THINGS IN WAR NOH:3LL

TT: WARS JUST GOTTA S:33 SOM:3THING IN US

• Double-Meaning Title: "Damaged Goods" refers to the deliveries made by many of the postal worker characters, as well as all of the characters facing physical or psychological damage at some point in their adolescence.
• The Dragon: AA to Belfor.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Keddie is an always-screaming, dismissive bully in charge of the courieradicators.
• Eating Optional: Sicely can eat normal food, but it just stops their Horror Hunger for a little bit, it doesn't stop their rotting.
• Evil Hand: AA's Arm Cannon is Red and Black and Evil All Over and is nearly the size of her entire body.
• Expressive Hair: Belfor's already spiky and long hair gets even more deadly when agitated, and to a lesser extent Sicely's hair has been seen to do the same.
• Extra Eyes: Scarie has four eyes.
• Faux Affably Evil: AA has "affable" in her trolltag, but it's made incredibly evident that it's farcical.
• Flower Motifs: Flowers surround Anthea especially, from her Meaningful Name to her environment. She's most strongly associated with roses, but she's been seen with hydrangeas and azaleas, representing heartlessness and temperance respectively.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Scarie's monster is named Marshmallow.
• Gambit Pileup: Just like in real war, it's less of a case of good vs evil and more like a complex web of intersecting personal desires and political interests.
• Gay Cowboy: Sicely is a butch lesbian who wears cowboy boots, leather jackets, and speaks with a twang, as well as living in the Alternian version of The Wild West.
• Genki Girl: Kirbey is an incredibly cheerful and excitable girl, even when war is going on all around him. There's implication that he's not as unfettered as he lets on, however.
• Given Name Reveal Belfor's first name is Comfey.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: AA actively avoids swearing, and goes to great lengths to find euphemisms. Kirbey also uses these, but has no qualms about using them in tandem with actual swears.
• Good Is Not Nice: The amount of quantifiably nice trolls in Damaged Goods can be counted on one hand. Sicely in particular is fighting against a deranged, murderous clown to save their home but they're cantankerous and easily riled up, frequently lashing out and insulting others.
• Good Witch Versus Bad Witch: Anthea is the Good Witch to Belfor's Bad Witch.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Anthea's "tea" looks a lot like blood. And given what we know of her caste's tendencies... turns out she's undead.
• I Call It "Vera": Sicely asserts all guns need names, with their own being A Light Shining In Darkness. UT's gun is called Victor.
• Improbable Weapon User: Belfor uses a gymnast's ribbon that's sharp enough to slice Sicely's cheek.
• Improbably Female Cast: Well, female and nonbinary. Lampshaded when the narrative addresses the presumed incredulity that the reader may have had upon hearing that there is at least one boy in the story.
• I Never Told You My Name: While not said verbatim, Sicely is visibly shocked that Belfor knows their last name despite them going out of their way to not tell her.
• Kneel Before Zod: Belfor makes Sicely kneel in their fight, stepping on their head.
• Large Ham: Keddie yells every word she says, often stringing up elaborate idioms and swears.
• Last-Name Basis: Several of the characters. Belfor is only known by her last name, and exclusively refers to everyone else by last name only. Keddie's first name is Lyseez, but almost everyone simply just calls her Keddie, probably as a result of her being their senior officer. AA tries to keep a last name basis on the principle of formality expected of her blood caste.
• Lesbian Jock: Keddie counts. Her introduction describes her as loving sports, and she's a rowdy girl who repurposed part of the post office's front lawn to be a sport's field of some sort.
• Lesbian Vampire: Anthea is a lesbian and unspecified undead, and given that jadebloods are known to become Rainbow Drinkers, this trope is implied.
• Light Is Not Good: Belfor is a potential Hero of Light, but she's the main antagonist and uses her Lightbound powers for control and evil.
• Literal Metaphor: Sicely and Anthea call each other "dead trolls", seemingly about having been dead to each other for a while. turns out their joke is more literal.
• Little Bit Beastly: Keddie has a visible nose, claws, and a tail. When shown, Her ears are also shorter and more catlike than the other trolls'.
• Madonna-Whore Complex: Anthea has one forcibly placed upon her due to her caste. No one can tell if she's a well-meaning pacifist that's fulfilling her duty as a jadeblood, or a conniving betrayer and former friend out for revenge.
• Mad Oracle: Belfor's ancestor seemed to be one, given the excerpt from her journal going from King James Bible Word-Salad Horror to... BarenakedLadies.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Sicely's name is derived from Sicily, an island in the meditteranean. Nohell could come from the fact that they've had a brush with death. (No-hell, get it?)
  • Kirbey Ermees seems named after Kirby, as well as Hermes, the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. Considering his love of comics, it could also be a reference to Jack Kirby.
  • Jotzen's last name Wiswah probably comes from "wishywashy". As for her first, she wants to be a writer- always jotting things down.
  • Anthea means "flower" in greek and is also an epithet for Hera, queen of the gods. Tenjou means "above heaven".
  • Scarie Scores sounds almost identical to scary stories, her favorite genre.
  • Belfor's first name is Comfey, referencing the comfrey plant and possibly the pokemon.
• Missing Reflection: Anthea doesn't cast a reflection, implying her undead nature.
• The Nicknamer: Sicely makes nicknames for everyone they know. Usually this is to be friendly, but sometimes they can come off as intentionally incorrect or outright insulting.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Kirbey's Argonaut alter ego doesn't cover his horns and he doesn't try to change his voice or speaking patterns. Somehow it still works on Scarie.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: "I'm fucking talking about fucking culling."
• Purple Is Powerful: Belfor is a purpleblooded troll and is by far one of the most powerful characters in the cast, in relation to both social standpoint as well as psychic.
• Purple Prose: Several of the characters wax poetic, with Anthea being particularly notable for it.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Well, pink eyes, but Belfor's eyes are a hot pink compared to the trolls' usual orange.
• She Is the King: The violetblooded ruler of the Dolore Region is referred to as a prince, even though she isn't a boy.
• Shout-Out: Plenty.
  • The entire opening sequence is to the opening cinematic of Fallout: New Vegas.
  • Sicely's gun is named A Light Shining In Darkness, the same as Joshua Graham's. UT's is named Victor, after the securitron.
  • Anthea is an Expy of Anthy Himemiya and Utena Tenjou from Revolutionary Girl Utena. Several panels also take iconography from the series, such as the shadow play girls or signature poses.
  • Keddie recites lyrics from the Mountain Goats' album Beat The Champ.
  • Belfor is a fan of My Miniature Hoofbeast: The Magic of Enmity.
  • Kirbey's wand is the Star Rod from- you guessed it- Kirby.
  • Scarie owns plushies of GIR and Zim in her room.
  • Keddie sitting at her desk references a Spiderman meme.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: This being a Homestuck fanwork, this is inevitable. Points go to Belfor and Keddie, who swear the most out of an already foul-mouthed cast.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Anthea comes across as this, given her delicate and intelligent vocabulary but her unwillingness to shy away from swear words.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Sicely is cranky, prickly, and flippant, but moments of vulnerability show that this is mostly a shield they put up and that the troll underneath is genuinely shaken by the trauma they go through and the grief they feel.
• Sword Cane: Kirbey's wand can turn into an umbrella and a sword.
• Tarot Motifs: A subtle one is the Alt Text for Anthea's death panel reads "Three of Swords" and the panel itself mimics the common imagery of that card. The card itself refers to betrayal and heartbreak.
• Tranquil Fury: Anthea's specialty is this, though she struggles to keep a straight face when Belfor taunts her.
• The Un-Reveal: Sicely's blood is spilled... during a neon fight scene where no color is as it seems.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: UT seems to be this trope, being the only remote troll in service to the courieradicators and maintains a radio report for the lowblood infantry as a whole.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Double Subverted. The panels itself are spoilered, but the scenes do not hide Belfor throwing up into their sink.
• Weird West: Well, Northwest. The Dolore Region seems to be Vancouver and northern Washington, as well as parts of California.
• We Used to Be Friends: Anthea has a lot of burned bridges, most notably Belfor and AA. Strangely enough, she prefers keeping in touch with most of them, and at the beginning of the comic is trying to make amends with Sicely and UT.
• Write What You Know: Word of God has stated on their discord that all the characters are autistic and experience both the hardships and advantages thereof, given that Cecil themself is autistic.