What are your thoughts on Damara's sexual language?

Hoo boy. This is a difficult one to answer because there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to Damara, and I personally think she both means it and doesn’t mean it at the same time. Okay, let me explain- Also obviously, this is just my headcanons, but!

A lot of people feel like Damara’s words are a shield. She’s intentionally trying to make people uncomfortable, she’s mean, but deep inside she’s still broken, grieving, and using that as an outlet. Now this is not entirely untrue! Damara knows most people cannot understand her, and she uses that to her advantage to make them uncomfortable! However, I personally don’t think she uses it that much as a shield.

First of all, let’s separate all of Damara’s Speech into Three different versions. There’s “East Beforan Newbie″, there’s “Knows East Beforan″, and then there’s “Broken English”.

“East Beforan Newbie” is what she uses the most. This is the way she speaks when she talks to someone who cannot accurately translate her speech. It’s overtly obscene and over the top to the extreme. Incredibly NSFW.

“Broken English” is what she uses when she’s talking with someone that doesn’t know her. Namely, with the Humans. However, seeing what we know of her, she’s pretty much faking all of it. Chances are she can speak completely proper English, maybe with an accent, as Meenah implies, but not as broken as she does, and definitely not as ‘gentle’ and ‘good natured’. She basically just tries to earn their trust so she can sneak around. Devious.

Finally, there’s “Knows East Beforan”, and this is the type of speech that should be focused on. This is when she speaks to Rufioh, and a couple of times with Meenah. Here, she actually attempts to keep a coherent conversation, and as such, a few traits begin to manifest themselves. First, she’s not as overly sexual- But she’s STILL noticeably more sexual than most other characters in the comic. She’s not shy about demanding ‘sexual favors’ from Rufioh even though he can understand her, nor does she shy away from asking if Rufioh wants her to seduce Horuss, or from groping Meenah. In fact, by her grin and the reactions of the Pyropes whenever she approaches Mituna or Karkat, and her subsequent distaste for being blocked by them, we start to see a bit more into her nature. There’s also, however, the fact that, before she goes for the seduction strategy with Horuss, she asks Rufioh if he wants her to kill him again. And of course, she has pledged allegiance to Lord English, and openly states how he wants to bring him to destroy everything and consume the souls of those she dislikes.

On top of that, there’s something Rufioh says. See, Aranea implies that Damara was as meek as gentle as could be, before Rufioh broke her heart, and then Meenah’s abuse and some likely influence by Kurloz made her snap. She always made it seem like it was sudden, but Rufioh mentions her having always been super jealous and possessive. Given Aranea also finds Kurloz to be mostly harmless, this actually checks out with her being completely blind to the true evil that lurks within the Dancestor party.

Overall? It seems Damara was always a bit more clingy and jealous than she seemed, but while in a happy relationship with Rufioh, she held those tendencies back. When he started to cheat on her, though, that jealousy grew more and more intense, and Meenah only added fire to the flames! Eventually, Meenah, and Kurloz manipulating her to be in LE’s side, eventually broke her completely, and she went on a complete rampage- And here’s the thing. She is broken- But she is not broken down with heart-wrenching sadness inside of her. She’s got anger inside of her, she’s got a burning distaste for those that wronged her. She said they ‘all would get what they deserved’ when she caused the Scratch, she talks Meenah about how the Ghost Army is fated to be devoured by Lord English, she pretty much rejoices in the promise of Chaos and Destruction. And, while not as sexual as she makes herself out to be with most others? There’s still a notable hint of perversion and deviancy to her attitude, which along her disregard for others and her now violent tendences, is an extremely dangerous combination.

Damara is a sad character, she was broken, manipulated, and left unchecked, but her attitude isn’t there to cover up a girl who wants to go back. Her perverted words are actually covering someone even more fucked up inside. Again, this is just my headcanon on her- I know a lot of people feel it’s more of a cover-up to her being still hurt but. She genuinely seems to not give a fuck, about anything anymore, to have embraced nihilism and destruction. The things she says are meant to make people uncomfortable, but if someone actually took her up on the offer, I don’t think she’d have much trouble actually living up to her words.

We do, however, see a single God Tier Damara in the Ghost Army! Implying that at least a version of her got a Happy Ending and managed to overcome Lord English’ pull to face him instead!