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  • 8-Bit Theater:
    • In one strip, the group argues against a giant cannon operator's claim that his cannon has its safety on because it just went off a moment ago. He relies that he never claimed that it was a good safety. Red Mage has to conceded that he has a point.
      Operator: No, it worked great. The safety was just on.
      Red Mage: Safety? The cannon very clearly went off!
      Operator: I never claimed it was a good safety, did I?
      Red Mage: I... you... that's a damn fine point.
    • To shut Black Mage up, the omnipotent Jerkass Sarda invents a spell that makes Black Mage vomit his entire digestive tract. Black Mage later attempts to use the spell and winds up vomiting his entire digestive tract again, because, in Black Mage's own words, "When Sarda casts a spell to hurt you, and you learn that spell, you learn to cast a spell that hurts you." In other words, Sarda didn't create a spell that makes the target vomit up its digestive tract. He created a spell that makes Black Mage vomit up his digestive tract. Even if it's Black Mage casting the spell. Sarda later does something similar with a reality-altering spell. It's not so much a spell to alter reality as the caster sees fit, as to alter reality as Sarda sees fit.
  • In Anecdote of Error, Yensha tells Luntsha she doesn’t make deals with schoolchildren. Luntsha points out that she just got expelled and so isn’t a schoolchild anymore, but Yensha tells her not to test her patience. Luntsha manages to make a deal anyway using Reverse Psychology.
  • In Angels 2200, when Lance is disguised as Loser while wearing her vac suit, he tells Whiskey that his programming forbids him from deceiving members of the crew, but that since they're asking for Loser, he won't have to respond and blow his cover. Unfortunately, the people calling for her then ask for the occupant of his vac suit, which he realizes he will have to answer.
    • Later on, when a Terran intelligence agent is on the ship, the captain gives Bubblegum a gag order regarding what they'd learned from their prisoner who'd recently committed suicide. Bubblegum says she'll "do her duty" to the Terran Navy, at which point the captain chews her out and tells her that she wanted her obedience to the letter of her order, not clever wordplay.
  • In Arthur, King of Time and Space, Lancelot, wanting to stay behind during the Roman Wars for reasons he doesn't understand himself, reminds Arthur that Mark of Cornwall once left his best knight behind as regent. Arthur replies "Mark didn't know Tristram was in love with his queen. Are you telling me you're in love with my queen?" After a shocked realisation, Lancelot says "...I'm not telling you that." He doesn't, of course, say he isn't.
  • In Ava's Demon, Wraitha restores Ava to her old life and says that since Ava didn't ask for different, she has fulfilled her part. Beware the Nice Ones, Wraitha.
  • Batman: Wayne Family Adventures:
    • In "Eyes and Ears", Barbara recounts her day at the library (actually as Mission Control):
      • "Helped a kid with some reading": Pointing Robin towards the note Batman left, banning him from using the Batmobile because of his age, and refusing to override the controls.
      • "Helped some people find their way around": Directing Spoiler and Red Robin who ended up at the wrong bank instead of the one that was being robbed.
      • "Workout a little": Beating off an intruder with a baseball bat.
    • In "Suit Up", Batman's suit is ruined in a fight with Condiment King and he asks Batwoman to bring him another one. Unfortunately, he didn't specify which suit, and Batwoman, Nightwing and Red Hood take advantage to give him a goofy suit as a prank.
  • As part of one Brawl in the Family mini-series, Ganondorf and Bowser swap enemies to take them down easier. When Link sees that he has to fight Bowser, Navi confidently announces that they can't lose because Link has a fireproof tunic. However, it turns out that it doesn't make Link fireproof as well.
    • Another example in 'Dededoo'. A character who looks like, but isn't, a Paper-Thin Disguise of Dedede, comes to Kirby's door and announces an intention to "CLEAN YOUR CLOCK!!!". He proceeds to wipe down Kirby's grandfather clock with a damp rag and then exit peacefully.
  • This Cyanide and Happiness strip sees a man discovering a magic lamp and freeing a genie, who offers three wishes. The man immediately asks for more wishes, and is told that a genie can only grant three... prompting the man to wish for more genies instead. Sure enough, the last panel shows several genies materializing and the original djinn cursing his bad luck.
    • The dimwitted Charles often uses this to insult his long-suffering girlfriend. In one instance, he assures her that her legs aren't fat, then points out that "your huge ass might be throwing off my frame of reference." In another, he suggests "going away" for the weekend...meaning she should go alone, so he can have a party. In yet another, the girlfriend announces that she's going out with some girlfriends that night—Charles happily announces that he's doing the same as he dons a pimp-style hat.
  • In Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures, Abel, confronted with an adventuring team looking for a Cubi from Lost Lake claimed by a seer to have killed a former teammate, claims to be the only Cubi at Lost Lake to protect a long-standing resident on a month-long sojourn who may have been indirectly and unwittingly responsible for the teammate's death.
  • Darths & Droids:
    • This case: the players wonder what kind of Single-Biome Planet Bespin will be. The GM promises "there won't be one type of land on the planet." There isn't a single type of land. Only gas.
    • An attempted example when Sally as Kylo Ren asks Jim as Poe "You'll be my double agent in the Resistance?", and he replies "I will be a double agent". She sees through that pretty quickly.
  • Debugging Destiny explores this when King is trying to answer Elizabeth's question without revealing Morton's secrets. He explains exactly what he did without including any of Morton's actions. Since no one else understands how magic works well enough to call him on this lack of detail, they chalk it up to King himself not knowing.
  • DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything:
    • The first shared quest specifically says "rip her clothes and hurt her feelings or take an embarrassing picture of her". Even as students do manage to attack Eunju, because she's not distressed X doesn't count it.
    • X takes Mio and Eunju hostage and asks Dongtae to admit defeat or he'll kill them. Dongtae yields, and X laughs off that he promised to not kill them, but not to free them, and still going to kill Dongtae himself for being a nuisance.
  • In Drowtales, the author's response to a fan who asked if the character Kalki was the daughter of another character was that she was her daughter, but her mother had never given birth. Later on we learn that Snadhya'rune, her mother, never has given birth — Kalki was carried outside her womb thanks to the technology of the Jaal'darya clan, but it still Snadhya'rune's biological daughter.
  • In a Dumbing of Age Paetron strip, Joe is praying, and says he'll start believing again if God sends him a woman who is as horny as he is. He immediately runs into Daisy, who's looking for the women's volleyball team.
  • In Elf Only Inn, King Herman is a paladin, who is immune to PvP damage, trying to reason with the Dorum brothers. Dor Dorum starts shooting him with a flamethrower to the face. Herman asks Dor to "lower his weapon." Dor responds by shooting the flamethrower at Herman's crotch.
  • Played for Drama in El Goonish Shive:
    • Abraham was a wizard's apprentice who enchanted a diamond to remove curses (originally meant for a werewolf) — but it turned out to physically separate the curses instead, curing the cursed individual while also manifesting a living copy of their cursed form. Unable to destroy the diamond, Abraham swore an oath to God that he would kill the cursed forms every time it was used. And that went well, until the curse was a Gender Bender and the cursed form was an innocent teenage girl instead of a dangerous monster. Abraham was horrified to realize this, but felt compelled to kill her anyway because of his oath. At the last minute, Nanase manages to convince him to stop because, although following the letter of his oath, he would in fact be violating the spirit of his oath — to protect people.
    • Lord Liam Tyrant-Slayer comes from "the other side of this universe", where magical lie-detection is routinely used in investigations. When he disrupts Elliot's meeting with Tara and Andrea, resulting in the rapid response of Dwight, a guard from his side of the universe, he uses short, direct sentences to explain that he was mind-controlled into attacking royalty (i.e. powerful magic-users), the person who cast the spell got past his magical defences by taking him by surprise, but he was able to control himself enough to enter our side of the universe and avoid killing when he immediately encountered royalty (Mr Verres). He doesn't speculate on the identity or motive of his attackers, other than to reject Dwight's theory that it was to kill the Queen. Because this was all his plan, with the specific purpose of getting Dwight out of the way.
  • Ennui GO!: When Izzy tells Sergio to "take care of" the dudes hanging around her building in the beginning of the second book, she just wants him to make them go away. Unfortunately, quoth Noah:
    "Sergio is an old-school Cuban revolutionary! You tell a dude like that to "take care" of a motherfucker, that motherfucker ends up DEAD!"
  • Erfworld does it all the time, often in a way that counts as Loophole Abuse:
    • When Lord Stanley is directing Wanda's channeling of the Summon Perfect Warlord Spell, he makes specific and bizarre requirements. The person summoned by the spell — Parson Gotti, an obsessive gamer geek from our world — exactly fits the wording of the requirements, just not in the way Stanley intended.
    • Later, Stanley orders Parson to shut up until ordered to speak. As Parson's Overlord, his orders are magically binding. Parson quickly gets around the order by exploiting a loophole: nobody said it had to be Stanley himself who would order him to speak.
    • While Stanley is debating an issue, Maggie asks if she can give him a suggestion. Stanley says "sure" and immediately takes a Suggestion spell in the face.
    • In the prequel Book 0, Charlie made a Deal of a Lifetime with Faq units, including Jillian, Wanda and Jack, one of the conditions for which was magically compelling them to never reveal what they learned about his past. The deal was explicitly said to last for the unit's lifetime, and Jack is freed from it after his death and decryption.
  • In Erstwhile, the farmer's clever daughter is told she may take any one thing she likes when she is sent away from the king's castle. She takes the king.
  • Freefall:
    • Sam and Florence fall down a ventilation shaft, so Florence asks Helix to tie a rope to a pipe, then throw the rope down to them so that they can climb back up. Unfortunately, she forgot to tell him to secure the pipe, too.
    • Helix objects to a starved Florence hunting and eating deer, so she compromises (through threatening Helix) to only eat a deer that's been road killed. Then she gives him "an obvious distraction" while ripping off a bit of road and killing a deer with it, making it "road kill".
    • An inspector tried to create an angry mob to get Sam Starfall's ass handed to him, but a series of misunderstandings soon turned the angry mob into a frightened one, and the inspector correctly suspects that Sam is behind it.
    • In another instance, the Mayor cripples Florence by ordering her to be silent, and since Florence is hardcoded to obey humans, she cannot speak at all. Sam manages to find a loophole by sending the Mayor a message that paraphrases to "If you don't say otherwise, we'll assume your order has been cancelled" and couching it in enough of his personal annoying diatribe that it makes the Mayor livid. She sends back a massively hate-filled response chewing him out, but forgets to include anything saying her order still stands.
    • A restauranteur catches Sam and Max both trying to skip out on paying the lunch bill. They wash dishes in a race to see who has to pay. Loser pays both bills.
    • A woman tells a robot to hide on a plane until it is brought into the hangar, so if anyone asks she can say he was hiding on the plane until it was brought into the hangar.
    • Winston wanted to build up to telling his parents he's dating an uplifted wolf gradually, so initially he told them that Florence had been genetically modified and had a tail, sharp teeth, and amber eyes, letting them assume that those were the modifications.
    • While investigating trouble on the Pournelle/Niven space station, Niomi reluctantly allows Sam to stay in her room for one night. Sam immediately leaves, saying he's not going to use that one night before he needs it.
      Niomi: Three weeks traveling with that sneaky sqid and I still haven't learned that you never give wiggle room to anyone who's boneless.
    • When Florence is asked who can give her direct orders, she names Mr. Raibert as one person, and adds that she "can't say there's anyone else who can give me orders". The only other person who can give her direct orders has their existence protected under a non-disclosure agreement that's sealed with a direct order; because of the order, Florence literally cannot say who they are.
    • Florence is uncomfortable with Winston's mother's fascination with how she's designed, which has previously led to her stripping off in the hope Florence would do the same, so when she suggests a spa day, Florence checks the space station spa isn't "clothing optional". She's later informed that clothing isn't optional, it's forbidden.
    • Sam Starfall gets hired to resolve the Pournelle/Niven Station's budget deficit in exchange for 17% of what he saves. The station manager expects him to cut costs somehow, but Sam determines that the current business is completely unsustainable and devises a plan to repurpose it entirely, thereby saving the station.
  • Girl Genius:
    • The official reports on the Other's attack on Castle Heterodyne stated that the seneschal and Carson von Mekkhan's son were killed; as Carson was known to have served as seneschal for decades most assumed that the entire von Mekkhan line was dead. What most didn't know was that Carson had retired just a few days earlier and was safe at home playing with his newborn grandson when his son, the new seneschal, was killed. They didn't particularly feel like correcting the error.
    • The oath that the Jagers took when signing up with the Baron was that "No Jager is to enter Mechanicsburg until a Heterodyne is once again in residence" a.k.a. once the Doom Bell has been rung to officially announce the succession of a new Heterodyne. However, it said nothing at all about being underneath Mechanicsburg, which is why there's a bar and hospital housing at least a hundred or so injured Jagers who are waiting for a Heterodyne to repair them, at sub-sub-sub basement level.
    • On more than one occasion, Agatha realizes that while Castle Heterodyne's controlling AI is loyal to its creator's descendants, she still needs to be very specific when giving it orders.
      Agatha: I'm going to have to think twice about everything I say to you, aren't I?
      Castle Heterodyne: It'll be fun!
  • Goblins:
    • A Demoness uses this when offering a Deal with the Devil; she claims to be the guardian of the Orb of Bloodlight, and offers a trade of "one soul for one orb". Dies-Horribly offers up himself for the bargain, and is given a non-magical orb made of ordinary blue stone instead. The demon gloats that Dies should have specified which orb he wanted when the deal was made. It comes back to haunt her immediately afterwards; Dies' magical arm apparently possesses a soul of its own, because the demoness is horrified to learn that she claimed two souls instead of one, and accuses the goblins of trickery. The "powers that be" deem her guilty of breaking a demonic contract, and banish her to the plane of torture.
    • Tempts Fate is challenged with a complicated riddle by a talking door, and the wrong answer will unleash horrible death. Tempts Fate simply opens the door, which wasn't locked. After all, it never said he had to give a right answer either.
  • In Head Trip, Mal gives a Twilight fangirl a Christmas present. A present with dark, brooding eyes, pale skin, and is cold as ice to the touch. A gift that sparkles in the sunlight. The Fangirl is NOT amused.
  • Doc Scratch from Homestuck. He prides himself on never lying (except in the short term, in service of a joke), but he's still deceptive. He deceives by strongly implying things, abusing hypothetical terms, and presenting just enough information to lead his marks to the wrong conclusion—while none of his direct statements are ever incorrect. In other words, Scratch lies through omission frequently—and when questioned about this, he smugly claims that said concept is a "human" one since mortals can never be in possession of all information and that everyone who talks to him "asks the wrong questions". Such is his talent with this that he successfully tricks Rose into not destroying the Green Sun, but creating it in the first place, and she doesn't even realize it until it's created.
    • Then there's the exchange between Jake and Dirk in which Jake states that "it's not like [Dirk's] from a century in the future", to which Dirk replies "Well. No." Dirk is definitely not from one century in the future; he's from four centuries in the future.
  • Housepets!: This is apparently how that curse that turns Thomas Milton into a camel works. The owner of the cursed treasure stipulated it must never be claimed by human hands, and the curse-laying demigod Petey is fully on board with troll solutions.
  • In the space theme of Irregular Webcomic!. Iki Piki knows Serron well:
    Spanners: You downloaded and installed the software patches back on Bune, right?
    Serron: I can honestly say that every patch I downloaded, I installed.
    Spanners: Good.
    Iki Piki: Wait...
  • Kubera: Before his identity is revealed, Asha frequently reassures people that Yuta is a Half. From a certain point of view, he is... but neither half is human.
  • Meems And Feefs: Liza the human tells Feefs the pet ferret not to jump from the top of his tall cage again, since he'll hurt himself. He cheerfully promises he won't, at the same moment as he jumps from the top of the even higher curtains.
  • Ménage à 3:
    • Matt's vow to himself that he won't so much as look at another woman until he wins Kiley back would be a bit more authentically noble if he wasn't bisexual. (Strip #1079, October 06, 2015, NSFW.)
    • In strip #1298, Jung dodges around Gary's questions to avoid revealing that Zii is hiding out in the comic shop. While he is deliberately misleading him, he doesn't tell a single lie.
  • In A Miracle of Science, Mars signed a treaty preventing them from deploying military force beyond the orbit of Deimos. The treaty says nothing about self-defense weaponry capable of destroying a capital ship, nor does it forbid moving Deimos to orbit Venus.
  • The author of Misfile once posted to the forums: "Emily is not a lesbian. Ash does not like boys." As Genre Savvy as the forum is, he may as well have posted "Em is bi" then and there, back when it wasn't so obvious from the strip.
  • Necropolis begins with a young girl returning home to find that while she was away, bandits destroyed her village, killed her father, and burned down her house. Furious, she makes a Deal with the Devil for a magic sword so she'll have the power needed to go and take revenge. She makes the mistake of thinking that the words "With this sword in hand, no other steel can touch you" mean that she's invincible and cannot be harmed. Not long afterwards she discovers her error when she encounters a magic user who freezes her in place with a spell, and later still she is beaten senseless by an unarmed but far better trained fighter who realizes that the sword has protective charms against armed foes, but not unarmed ones.
    Witch: It is quite the sword isn't it? Enough charms and spells on it to make even a scrawny little gosling like you nearly invincible. To steel and iron, at least. It does nothing to safeguard you against sorcery, however. Which has left you, tiny warrior, at my mercy.
  • Oceanfalls: Early on in act 2, Nino finds a cat and takes him with him to Icicle Bay, where he meets Mei. When they meet for the first time, Mei yells, "MY BOYFRIEND" at Nino and the cat. After she calms down, she explains the cat is hers and she named him "Boyfriend". When Nino asks why, and she leads him on, he puts it all together: she called him that so she could say she had a boyfriend when people asked.
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • Therkla disobeys the clear intent of her orders and lays the blame elsewhere, on the ground that she had tried to obey exactly the orders she was given, and the fall guy had tried to obey the intent. Her superior lets it slide because weaseling out of responsibility for your own actions is a political skill he had taught her personally, and he's proud of her progress — but to be clear, he also gives the explicit order that next time, she is to do exactly what everyone already knew he wanted her to do.
    • Lampshaded by Tarquin, who promises to a diplomat that his forces will join a battle the next day but doesn't specify which side they will join. When they join the opposing side, he quips:
      Tarquin: ... And here I was worried all night that you were going to figure it out early. I mean, I thought I just made it, like, WAY too obvious, but I guess it all worked out, huh?
    • In another instance, Redcloak chews out Xykon for endangering the life of their prisoner, O-Chul, making him fight gladiatorial combat with various monsters for Xykon's amusement, prompting Xykon to swear that he "won't put the paladin in any type of enclosure with any animal, magical beast or aberration, as part of an attempt to entertain ourselves." As soon as Redcloak leaves the room, Xykon tells his other minion, Tsukiko, to create some undead gladiators for O-Chul to fight.
    • Surprisingly, the Monster in the Darkness also pulls one, but certainly not intentionally:
      Hobgoblin: Are you sure the Supreme Leader said this was OK?
      MitD: Oh, yeah, he gave me a direct order.
      [flashback]
      MitD: Hey, Redcloak, I need—
      Redcloak: Go bother someone else.
    • When one character comes to an Evil wizard named Grubwiggler as a last resort to resurrect another character, she gets the idea that maybe Grubwiggler intends to "revive" the corpse as some form of Undead. She uses a Sense Motive spell to ensure that he's telling the truth when he tells her that he will not create an Undead out of the corpse... he doesn't tell her that what he does intend to do is transform it into a golem, which under D&D rules is a Construct, not an Undead. It doesn't seem like Grubwiggler is trying to cheat her on purpose — more like he just dislikes undead and thinks a golem is totally different. (And it genuinely hasn't occurred to him that anyone would expect him to actually raise someone, because why would they?)
      She tries to make it work in the other direction too. When she realises she's being sold a golem, she's quick to point out that she didn't sign the written contract handed to her and didn't actually agree to a verbal contract, even though there was very clear general agreement that she was buying his services, except for the part where she didn't realise what they were.
    • Roy had once asked an oracle where Xykon currently was, and had received the answer "on his throne". When he later returns to the same oracle, he deliberately forms his question to be as immune to twisting as possible. Ironically, however, this makes him receive a worse answer, because his phrasing of the question had limited Xykon's next attack to one of two possible locations, and Xykon had chosen to Take a Third Option. The Oracle tried to get Roy to word his question in a way that would allow him to give the proper answer, but Roy was having none of it. The very next strip has Elan of all people pointing out Roy's error... but moments later the party triggers the Memory Charm around the Oracle's tower so that the only thing they remember from the visit with the Oracle was the answers he gave to their specific questions. Thus eliminating the advance warning they would've otherwise had of Xykon's imminent attack.
      The Oracle: Yes, you've certainly managed to cunningly outsmart yourself at the very least.
    • Durkon, a very lawful character, averts being Lawful Stupid nicely when he convinces Miko that the team wasn't trying to escape, their cages were open because of a mechanical defect. When questioned later he says that he considers "able to be picked by a rogue" to be a pretty big defect. More crucially, he gets around the fact that the other party members left their cells by stating that the five of them, as in collectively, didn't leave the cells (he stayed in his).
    • Subtle example in the IFCC's negotiations with Vaarsuvius. "We simply don't need to trick you if we can get what we want by playing it straight." sounds a lot like "We aren't tricking you." without saying anything of the sort.
    • Vaarsuvius attributes being able to defeat the psion Laurin Shattersmith to "a combination of observations, calculations, and superior intelligence". They don't mention that mean in the rpg statistic sense but in the military sense of gathering intelligence, i.e. a full briefing on her abilities, courtesy of Sabine.
    • In strip 743, Haley and Durkon argue about whether to tell Malack they know each other; Haley doesn't trust him, but Durkon does and doesn't want to lie. Haley argues they don't have to lie as long as Malack doesn't directly ask about it, but then he does. Durkon admits that they know each other, but Haley continues by saying she's a worshipper of Thor (whose cleric Durkon is) and Durkon was there when she converted. She explains this to Durkon as being true by saying she converted just there and then.
    • After the Azure City Gate is destroyed, Lord Hinjo asks O-Chul if he did it. O-Chul responds that he made the decision, and his blade performed the act, but he leaves out the part in the middle because he doesn't want to speak ill of the dead: O-Chul was frozen in place by a lich's paralyzing touch before he could actually do the deed; Miko, completely misunderstanding the situation, took his sword from his hands and smashed the sapphire herself, dying in the process.
    • In an early arc, Roy spends some time in Heaven before being brought back to life. While in Heaven he discovers that his parents, whose relationship went through serious ups and downs, are both seeing other people. When he tries to bring this up, his father points out that their vows were upheld "until death do them part". After that point, they both took liberty to look elsewhere.
    • In strip 1173 Durkon saves the Dwarves from Hel's plan to destroy the world and claim their souls by smashing the wooden table into two pieces. Dwarves, being the ultimate lawful race, included literally thousands of rules for every occasion and in this case, no vote among the council of clan elders can be held unless there is a wooden table that fits a very specific list of criteria. By breaking the table into pieces, the meeting is immediately suspended and no vote can be held until they can find a tree big enough to make a new table from. Durkon's mother put it best when she said to one of Hel's vampires:
      Sigdi: Were ye really so dumb ta think tha ye could beat Durkon...in a fight tha revolved around followin' tha rules?!?
    • Early in the 3rd story arc, Vaarsuvius attempts this when Roy asks them if they've been casting explosive runes on Belkar. Roy is having none of it.
      Vaarsuvius: Technically, I cast Explosive Runes on a series of inanimate objects.
    • Played for Laughs in "A Dish Best Served Warm, After All" — after Vaarsuvius returns from the Semi-Elemental Plane of Ranch Dressing, Durkon asks them if they had any exciting adventures there. They say they did not, but after a flashback panel showing a Ranch Dressing Elemental congratulating them on saving the princess, they add "You did specify exciting adventures, correct?"
    • Basically everything Malack says about his children and the bond he had with them or his health condition that requires a special diet is completely truthful while concealing that he's a vampire.
    • The newly-elevated vampire High Priestess of Hel demands that per the strict rules of their current situation, Roy must immediately hand over her property: the evil magical staff he is in possession of. Roy agrees they have to follow protocol, and so snaps the staff over his knee and throws the pieces in her face.
    • When Haley is charmed by Sunny the Beholder and told "Let go of my mother!" she manages to circumvent the spell enough to say that she'd be happy to do so, but she doesn't know the identity of the invisible being she's holding, so has no way of telling if this is who the order refers to. The charm gets dispelled before she has to push it any further.
  • Precocious:
    • Autumn offers to wash the dishes. She did not say anything about washing pots, pans, silverware...
    • Later, Bette orders the kids to run one mile(approximately), but forgets to specify they do it in the designated track. As the other kids dash away, Max notes that they are following directions... approximately.
  • An early arc in Pvp features Brent DM-ing a particularly tyrannical game of Dungeons & Dragons. During one instance Francis rolls to see if his character runs into any traps in a dungeon.
    Francis: I roll to detect traps.
    Brent: You don't find any.
    Francis: All clear, guys!
    [Francis' character is immediately set upon all sides by poisonous gas, arrows, and finally crushed underneath a boulder]
    Francis: You said there weren't any traps!
    Brent: No, I said you don't find any.
  • The Queen and the Woodborn: Danica swears an oath to serve Morana until she dies, which happens almost immediately after she's done saying it because of her illness. Morana is both angry and impressed because of her Loophole Abuse, bringing her Back from the Dead to thwart Danica's ploy.
  • Sailor Ranko: Nabiki wants to help her sister to keep her fiance's Unwanted Harem out of her hair as long as possible, and profiting off it is a nice bonus. But she has a reputation to maintain. Solution: she can give wrong address and say she heard it from Genma, if Genma reads her the text she wrote. But that leaves her vulnerable to Dumpster Dive, since she didn't destroy the paper and, apparently, kept her trash for months.
  • Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
    • On how to stay a virgin. A purity ring means you stay a virgin, which in this case means you allegedly stay a virgin even if you have sex.
    • Also this strip. "This machine will show you the very last thing you'll see before you die" — because you'll be killed when looking at it.
    • Comic for 2011-04-13: As Jesus said, "The meek will inherit the Earth." Thus, he shows up to take the non-meek to heaven.
    • "The Death Spot": A ninja teacher finally reveals the spot that, when hit, will result in instant death. The information isn't as exciting or useful as it sounds, since the spot is inside the heart.
    • The origin of the expression "quantum leap" is revealed to be that someone wanted a term that really means something really small but sounds like it means something large and significant.
    • In "Semantics", a man makes a Deal with the Devil to obtain a bag that will provide money whenever he needs to buy something. Only, that really means need, not just want to.
    • The median American is now a millionaire — because the government tracked down the specific individual who was the most median and gave her a million dollars so they could say that.
    • "AI 3": To create human-level artificial intelligence... make humans a lot stupider.
    • "Two Weeks": Since several comets are about to hit the Earth, doctors can now give all their patients the prognosis they have two weeks to live.
    • "Context 3": You can claim anything you said is taken out of context when repeated, because the original context was not when it was repeated. And no-one watching the news has the attention span to notice you're just using a trivial loophole.
    • In this strip, a senator invites journalists to a three-hour press conference where he promises to tell them that he cheated on his wife with a prostitute, is secretly a crack dealer, and once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. None of that is true; it was just bait to get the journalists to attend a press conference about preventable diseases in the Global South. The next day's headline? "Senator Lies About Having Sex With Prostitute".
  • Scandinavia and the World: The King of the Franks orders the Nordics to kiss his feet. Norway and Sweden decline, but Denmark agrees. However, the King of The Franks probably did not anticipate being dragged out of his seat, and held upside down.
  • Schlock Mercenary:
    • One storyline has Tagon's Toughs acting as security for an "archeological dig"; a side discussion has Tagon order Kevyn to stay "up there, away from all of those crowds of 'somebody else'." Kevin realizes Tagon DIDN'T say not to investigate from the ship... Tagon later uses Kevin's study to pull a Batman Gambit in renegotiating the contract.
      Tagon: Come on. I gave you an order with loopholes in it.
    • In this strip, Tagon isolates the specific phrasing of some contracts he's been offered in order to get paid twice. The next strip confirms that his employers expected this and carefully arranged their contracts to permit exactly this.
    • And in this strip, Tagon — with some help from the company lawyer, Massey Reinstein — successfully argues that their escapades in the Credomar space station — in which they blew up part of it, narrowly prevented the destruction of the rest of it, and accidentally led a robot they built to install himself as a benevolent dictator — meant that they technically "delivered and ensured the equitable distribution of UNS-supplied emergency provisions", as stated in the contract, which incidentally did not require them to supply the provisions to a pro-UNS faction like their employers wanted. Their employer concedes the point very, very reluctantly.
  • In a strip of Shotgun Shuffle, Quinn tells Ellie not to set foot in her room. Once Quinn leaves, Ellie goes into her room by walking on her hands.
  • Sluggy Freelance: Soon after Bun-bun is introduced, he keeps getting Torg into trouble by making remarks that people think were made by Torg (because it's not like they're going to think it was the rabbit). After getting beaten up for it in a bar, Torg asks him not to make any more "observations" on big, muscle-bound guys. Bun-bun agrees, and immediately proceeds to verbally harass the date of one such guy instead.
  • Something*Positive:
    • When Davan's boss makes a request, Davan makes it happen.
    • The 2016 Christmas season has an arc where Davan's neighbor, Mr. Gibson, asks Davan to put up some Christmas decorations but specifically asks that they not include The Krampus. Davan starts making decorations based on different gory Christmas legends instead. Mr. Gibson expected this; it's just that three other families in the neighborhood were doing Krampus already.
    • When Vanessa's boss asks her to dress nicer for work:
      Vanessa: So, ignore the syllabus. Today we're going over the philosophy of following instructions in the most petty way possible.
  • Tales of the Questor makes this trope an important point during the Wild Hunt arc. The fae are bound by boons, which makes it important to word them correctly so that Loopholes can't be exploited. In particular, an unseleigh fae princeling promises the hero a boon if he survives the Wild Hunt "til the rooster crows the dawn". Thus, he rigs the bet by killing every rooster in the area, thus meaning that there's no rooster to crow the dawn. Luckily, one of the hero's allies happened to be nicknamed "the Rooster" for her convincing rooster calls.
  • Terror Island:
    • Liln has to call Sid a "privateer wordsmith" because she lost a bet; they were arguing over whether Pluto was the farthest planet, but both failed to specify what it was farthest from and so Sid clarified that he meant "farthest from Pluto".
    • In Strip #66, Sid tells Jame "don't panic, but there's a small chance that, through no fault of my own, I may have summoned a demon into you". Jame is definitely possessed, but there's a small chance it wasn't Sid's fault.
    • From Strip #27:
      York: Stephen, your word is "Camelopard".
      Stephen: Can you use it in a sentence?
      York: Almost certainly.
      Stephen: Sorry, will you use it in a sentence?
      York: Probably not. It isn't a very common word.
    • In Strip #162, the Green Grocer responds to the others not wanting to hear his story with "alright, but if you don't want to hear my story, you won't get to hear about werewolf valkyries". He was telling the truth, he just omitted the fact that they wouldn't get to hear about werewolf valkyries either way.
    • In Strip #243, Sid asks Jame "If I don't know anything about skating boards, then how do you explain my undefeated record?"
      Jame: I give up. How?
      Sid: Oh, easy. I've never entered any competitions before.
  • When he realises that Gail from Thunderstruck can detect lies, the leader of a morally dubious group reassures her she has nothing to worry about because his men will have orders not to harm her sister. He had already issued orders to 'test' Sharon and neutralize her if she were a threat, and gets a real Oh, Crap! moment when he realizes it's too late to rescind them.
  • Tower of God
    • In episode 47, Hoh lures Rachel to him by saying that he wants to talk about how someone in their own team is targetting Bam. Yes, Hoh is, and he does it by taking Rachel hostage.
    • Though it's not an intentional deception, in "20F The Strongest Regular", a test has everyone on that round trying to climb up the Tower take a test measuring how much they can channel Shinsu, and the test administrator says the test is to find the strongest Shinsu user, and eight of them will pass. Everyone assumes that the top eight will pass, but then the test administrator asks the winner to choose seven others to go with him.
    • Episode 307 has one that's certainly a bit of a stretch: "I never said I would spare him if you told me. I said that I would kill him if you didn't tell me..." (Something of a Morton's Fork situation, there...)
    • Kind of a Non Sequitur one on the Hidden Floor, but it's talked about in these terms. The data of Jahad and the data of Khun Edahn make a bet about Edahn being able to train Bam so the he can fight data Jahad in just one month, agreeing on a bunch of other terms as well. Then Jahad — guessing that Edahn must be planning something else — goes out to kill Edahn's followers in his base and, when his minion asks about it, points out that he never promised anything about not doing that (because it's not what the deal was about at all). Edahn anticipates it anyway and moves them away before he gets there.
  • Trevor (2020): Dr. Maddison maintains that he did not cause Trevor’s sudden death. He isn’t lying, but he isn’t telling the whole truth of the matter either.
  • In Two Guys and Guy, Frank creates a device that he claims will kill anyone on Earth at the push of a button, which it will do by blowing up the Earth itself, killing your target along with yourself and everyone else. He mentions that he's having trouble marketing it, for some reason.
  • In Welcome to Chastity the main character, Mei, moves into a town where all the women have insanely huge breasts and is told by her extremely busty roommate that that's the case for all the women living in the town. The next morning Mei finds out that her roommate was being literal, as her breasts have gone from flat chested to D-cups overnight.
  • In one Wondermark strip, alien Jerkass Gax offers a man the assistance of a Gaxian luck spell before a big date. When the man returns, covered in soot, Gax points out that he never specified what kind of luck.
  • Randall Munroe of xkcd apparently does not like it when people try this on him. Black Hat Guy shares his distaste in one Indulgent Fantasy Segue.
  • In one Yamara strip, Ralph the toad is given conflicting instructions regarding Persephone the former vampire's first meal as a living being. Joe tells him not to include meat, and Stress tells him not to include vegetables. While Stress means Persey should be given meat, Ralph manages to obey both orders by serving cream of mushroom soup.
  • Zebra Girl: In order to release Sandra from the grasp of a big guy, Viv convinces him that she will punish her herself, telling him that she will "make her hurt in ways even you can't manage". True enough, she proceeds to make Sandra face her humanity and makes her realize what she has done when she succumbed to her demonic urges.
    Viv: Growth is painful, you know?

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