Digging Yourself Deeper / Webcomics

Characters who keep digging themselves deeper while trying to clarify an unintentionally unfortunate remark in Webcomics.

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• Alex does this once in Angel Moxie.
  Alex: You tell us everything, and I mean everything. Well, not everything, actually. Just the stuff about you and your friends and things. None of that birds and bees stuff. We already know all that, and besides, it's kind of icky.
• This Darths & Droids, in which Jim gets mixed up between talking in character and out of character, as well as whether Padme is telling Anakin she loves him, or whether he's telling Annie that he loves her.
• Jeremy from Dead Winter, here.
• Digger has a hilariously cringe-inducing example, split across three pages:
  Jhalm: Honored Digger... Almost, I could believe I had misjudged you. Except that this very morning, I received a report from one of the Veiled, that you were seen to be consorting with a hyena creature, not half a mile from this spot. The very same creature that attacked me a few days ago.
  Digger: (stunned expression)
  Statue of Ganesh: Is this true, Burrower?
  Digger: Well— Yes, but— It wasn't like that!
  Jhalm: Do you deny that it was the same creature, then?
  Digger: No—
  Jhalm: Do you deny that it attacked me?
  Digger: No, but—
  Jhalm: Do you deny that you were speaking on friendly terms with it?
  Digger: No! But that's a recent development! We weren't friends before she attacked you!
  Digger: (Face Palm) Hang on, that didn't come out right at all...
  Jhalm: An interesting criterion for friendship, Honored Digger.
• El Goonish Shive has a character "good" in this—Abraham, who managed to rile Raven more with every phrase as he tried to explain himself. He's absent for now, but Elliot somehow found his Idiot Ball.
  • The Abraham example is interesting because there are no tongue slips - everything he says is completely intentional - he just doesn't realize that he's hitting another one of Raven's Berserk Buttons with every passing sentence.
• In Everyday Heroes, the local Goth girls refer to Summer's friend as "the Blessed Virgin Carrie". Carrie ignores it, but Summer and Uma try to explain why she should be insulted... and end up invoking this trope.
• Used as a visual metaphor in Flying Suit Reiko, when one character awkwardly confesses his FA/Feederism fetish to his girlfriend. His thought balloons have him digging a hole deeper and deeper. When she finally tells him it's okay and she likes it too, his visual metaphor is raised out of the pit by an oil geyser.
• The page image features Mort from Gunnerkrigg Court falling into this when speculating on why Antimony can see The Guides:
  Mort: Y'know, It's probably because you're so attractive. I noticed that about you when we first met.
  Antimony: Oh?
  Mort: Oh! I uh... I don't mean you're attractive... I mean, like a magnet... or a medium... Haha... Yeah. Ah! B... But I don't mean you aren't... I mean you look really... I... Uh... Oh geez... (turns into a tombstone with a picture of a foot going into a mouth)
• In Homestuck, Doc Scratch, "an immortal entity with a large cue ball for a head, and no biological means of reproduction", explains to Rose that he doesn't like her that way after being Mistaken for Pedophile:
  Scratch: There should be no reason for you to feel uncomfortable with this interaction. Try to think of me as one of your kindly human uncle figures.
  Scratch: In fact, if I were in your presence now, I would offer you candy to prove it.
  Rose: Oh my god.
• In Jupiter-Men, Jackie is furious with Quintin for getting them both in hot water when their mom texts that she'll be home early while they're defying Quintin's grounding to go looking for his camera. Quintin then points out that it's Jackie's fault for following him as he had planned to go alone. She shuts him up by pulling his hoodie shut, after which he appeases her by saying he knows a shortcut.
• In Knights of Buena Vista, Mary mentioned that she liked to wear furs over swimsuits in summer, and her boyfriend Bill insisted that was a private thing with them. His sister Adriana realized that Mary then let her borrow those very furs after Mary wore them that way. When Adriana thought she was going to be sick, Mary insisted that nothing happened; Bill just took pictures.
  Adriana: "That's NOT helping, Mary!"
• Lackadaisy:
  • Mitzi, realizing that Rocky has been saying that she might've hired him to off her husband, tried to reassure Wick that's not the case, but ends up making a lot of joking remarks about offing Rocky.
    Mitzi: Uh... you stopped rowing.
  • Mitzi has some trouble reassuring the (remaining) band members in "Lackadaisy Inspiration":
    Sy: Why not wrangle up the relentless brow, then? This latest mess was his masterwork.
    Mitzi: He's off to make another pickup tonight. Real stuff, from an old, reputable supplier.
    Sy: Well, we can safely say no lessons have been learned, then.
    Mitzi: Beggars can't be... students Sy. If some unpleasantness follows him home again, we'll be ready for it.
    Sy: We?
    Mitzi: But that won't happen. Because this time he'll have a gun at his side.
    Band: *in unison* YOU GAVE HIM A GUN?
    Mitzi: NO, No! A gunman! A hired gun. I hired someone else to hold the gun. More of a gunkid than a gunman I suppose, but—
    Band: *in unison* YOU GAVE HIM A CHILD WITH A GUN??
• Piro of MegaTokyo tends to do this a lot. Some times are worse than others.
• Ménage à 3: Zii demonstrates the trope here.
• Misfile:
  • Rumisiel manages to pull this big time when talking to Dr. Upton about his daughter. The comic provides a nice visual metaphor for what he's doing.
  • Rumi does it again when he needs to ask Dr. Upton a question. The doctor asks if he'd like a shovel for that hole.
• In The Order of the Stick, Roy and Belkar pretended to be gay to hide their surprise at seeing the similarity between General Tarquin and Elan. Tarquin took it as a compliment, but then made a few follow-up comments that he immediately realised to be unintentionally homosexual by nature:
  Tarquin: Tell you what, if you change your mind and live through tomorrow's fight, I'll see what I can do about getting us on the same team. The army team. Not the, you know, "other team" team. Like I said, I could use more men like you under me—and I now realise that maybe that's not the best turn of phrase either.
• An essential part of Hannelore the whole cast from Questionable Content.
• Some people, like Larisa in Sandra and Woo, just shouldn’t try to defend themselves...
• Inherent to Schlock Mercenary. Usually with Tagon, who has done this not only with a compliment to Breya, but his defence in a trial as well.
  Tagon: I'm not stopping until this hole goes straight through.
  • Ennesby caught this, too.
• Weregeek, Sarah's character in their Vampire: The Masquerade LARP sometimes gets like this — as her friend said, "Blackmailing vampires: like shooting fish in a barrel, except you give the guns to the fish and then just wait".
• xkcd: Cueball has an argument at the airport:
  Cueball: But if you're worried about bombs, why are you letting me keep my laptop batteries? If I overvolted them and breached the cells, it would make a sizeable explosion.
  Megan: Oh god.
  Cueball: It's okay, dear. In a moment he'll realize I have a good point and return my water.

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