Loophole Abuse / Web Original

Loophole Abuse in Web Original series.

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• Some tropers sometimes try to pull this on This Very Wiki. Such examples can usually be safely removed.
  • Audience Reactions get little pictures when put into the main section unless the words "in universe" are used. Putting the phrase in universe, regardless of context will remove the picture.
  • Some tropers add examples to the Web Original section of No Real Life Examples, Please! that describe real peoples' actions on the internet. For example, "Reddit is notorious for this" or "This trope is a common sight on Tumblr".
  • On a similar note, Tear Jerker bans real-life examples, but whenever a famous musician passes away, expect the death to be listed on their Tear Jerker subpage anyway, with the "justification" that it counts as a music example rather than a real life example.
• An episode of 50% OFF had Nagisa exploit the rules of his old school system to graduate. According to his headmaster, he needs to kill someone, then be tried innocent; nothing said he couldn't kill the rest of the student body before they could suspect him of murder. No students means no witnesses. No witnesses means no trial. No trial means no guilty verdict. He's innocent by default, so he's free to walk.^note Technically, he also exploited a couple of rules that were talked about in another killing game — He's able to kill more than two people because Monokuma didn't say that he couldn't yet, and since Monokuma always follows the rules, Nagisa's perfectly free to massacre the other participants.
• In one episode of Achievement Hunter's Let's Play Minecraft, Geoff ends up robbing Gavin of a victory when he points out that he can't kill Gavin in the safe zone, there's no rule that he can't take the iron ore he's turning into ingots. Which he does.
  • Ryan Haywood of the group is known for this. To the point where Geoff had to stop and specifically tell Ryan the only way to kill people.
    • Gavin pulls this on Ryan during a Let's Play with Grand Theft Auto V. The LP was of them trying to see who could fill up their new Sanity Meter first. Ryan is the first one there, but Gavin declares that he doesn't count because he's already crazy. They're quick to agree to that and that the second one there is the real winner.
  • In another GTA V Let's Play, Michael ends up winning for his team when his airplane breaks apart and he lands in the water safely, allowing him to make the winning score. Next round, Ryan immediately dives into the water, forcing an Obvious Rule Patch.
• Ain't no rule that vampires can't be gymnasts!
• Being the Elite often plays phone videos, or displays photos, of their matches instead of reproducing TV broadcasts. Multiple episodes close with the camera panning upwards as the Bucks do the DX chop.
• To Boldly Flee, the fourth Channel Awesome anniversary special, has one. The Nostalgia Critic is placed under house arrest. His solution? Turn the house into a spaceship.
  The Nostalgia Chick: But Critic, won't this violate your house arrest?
  Critic: Why? I'm not leaving the house.
• A boy decides to use his third wish for another genie. The current genie, while admitting it's never happened before, strongly advises against it, and... well, just watch.
• YouTube allows users to upload their own thumbnails for their videos. A lot of wrestling fans will post supposed videos of recent matches - accompanied by a screenshot from it. Turns out they've really uploaded themselves playing the match out on a video game.
• "Can I have some ice cream?" "Only a spoonful." [holds a giant spoon in mischief]
• Cracked's Dan Seitz has described The 6 Most Creative Abuses of Loopholes. Highlights include buying 12,000+ cups of pudding to earn millions of free airline miles.
• In DEATH BATTLE!, this comes up in the match between Ghost Rider and Lobo. The latter was functionally immortal as the afterlife explicitly had a document stating that Lobo's soul was not to be collected by Heaven, Hell or Death itself. However, it did not state anything against his soul being destroyed, which is how Ghost Rider ends him.
• In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Android 16 prepares to battle Cell, which confuses 17 as he was designed to fight Goku and only Goku, and had up to that point outright refused to fight anyone else. 16 points out that 10.78% of Cell's DNA is identical to Goku's and declares "These parameters...are acceptable!" before beating the stuffing out of him.
• Discussed in Dream's Grand Finale video (37:01), when the hunters go in the End before Dream could.
  Bad: Hey, you never said we could not go to the End before you.
  George: It's true.
  Sapnap: It's not against the rules and regulations.
  Sapnap: Let's just flip through my (makes a flipping page sound) manual (flips again) of Manhunt, yep, it's not in the rules.
  Bad: Oh. What about that, Dream. Interesting.
  • Dream gets out of this seemingly unwinnable scenario as there wasn't a rule against dropping a load of TNT through the End Portal either.
• GameFAQs has a word filter to prevent users from making posts with offensive words or other terms with an unwholesome background. Naturally, one could just try to invoke this trope by partially censoring the word, but the site's terms of use defy it by making bypassing the censors a specific, punishable violation.
• In If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, when High Inquisitor Karamazov comes to Terra in order to discover the "heretics" he suspects lurk within, Ecclesiarch Decius tries to stop him, knowing that Inquisition "interrogations" tend to involve copious amounts of bloodshed. Ultimately, he doesn't have the authority to order Karamazov to leave, but he does remind the Inquisitor of the holy teachings saying that "Not one drop of blood shall be spilt on Terra's holy grounds", thinking this will at least keep the Inquisition from doing anything really nasty. Karamazov agrees, and when Decius leaves, he then tells his followers to burn their victims instead.
• In the short "My Dinosaur Is A Service Animal", Chris Pratt (playing his character from the Jurassic World films) defends taking his dinosaur on an airplane, because there ain't no rule he can't.
• In My Little Pony: The Mentally Advanced Series Applejack figured out the way to get Twilight to cancel her Celestia-mandated sleepover: dare her to do it in Truth or Dare.
  • In the spinoff episode Rainbow Dash Presents Captain Hook the Biker Gorilla, the rules for the flight exam state that a pegasus taking the exam can't be helped by a pegasus (or a bizzaro pegasus). Meaning that the Earth pony Apple Bloom and the demon possessing a unicorn Thrackerzod can help Scootaloo. This being a flight proficiency exam though, they pretty much guaranteed that Scootaloo would bomb the exam, setting the plot in motion.
• Invoked in an episode of Plumbing the Death Star where the cast members act out how they think Harry Potter characters should have acted. Professor Dumbledore, as Joel Zammit would have him act, learns of a curse that prevents any Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher from teaching for more than a year. How does he undo this Dark Magic of old? He re-names the class.
• Red vs. Blue has an example of double abuse. Director Church was told he could only have one AI, but nobody said you couldn't torture the AI until it fractured and developed multiple personality disorder, then harvest the personalities as independent A.I.s. When called on the fact that A.I.s are considered living beings as far as laws on torture go, Director Church points out that there are many laws about what you are not allowed to do to other people, but no laws about what you are allowed to inflict on yourself, and the AI was a copy of his own mind. It's pretty blatant, because according to season 10 he got his doctorate in the theory of doing it. Did ... nobody think he was serious?
  • He even gave lectures about it for the Freelancers and their AI, and the only CT and Sigma figured out that he was actually doing it, though they reacted so strongly that they sparked most of the rest of the series.
• This Reddit user was delivering bagels and coffee to a law firm's meeting when a Jerkass security guard refused to let him park anywhere but the already-full guest lot, even threatening to tow his car. When the hungry lawyers found out, they hired the delivery boy as a member of the firm, giving him a contract, an employee badge, and access to employee-only parking, and then fired him once the delivery was finished (with a $70 "severance package").
• RWBY:
  • In Volume 2, Dr. Oobleck orders Team RWBY to leave their backpacks behind because he's already packed what they need. Upon reaching their destination, he orders them to obey his instructions precisely before spotting Ruby has her backpack. Upon asking her why she disobeyed him, she points out that he hadn't ordered them to listen to him at that point. He concedes "she's not wrong".
  • Maidens have incredible Elemental Powers that they pass on when dying, determined by who is in their last thoughts; if it's a young woman, she receives the power, otherwise it will go to a random young woman. It is therefore possible for young women to steal the power by killing a Maiden, whose last thoughts will often be of their attacker. At least two Maidens have obtained their powers this way, and at least one has deliberately sacrificed her life to thwart her enemy's attempt to do it.
  • The Relic of Creation is bound by the rule that it cannot destroy, although nothing stops people from using its creations destructively. Both Team RWBY and Cinder have exploited this loophole to obtain outcomes they technically shouldn't be allowed. Team RWBY asks the Relic to take Penny's existing robot parts to create a new virus-infected robot that will cease to exist the next time he creates something new; by stripping Penny down to her soul, the Relic is forced to find a way to keep her soul alive. Cinder simply asks the Relic to create more flames where fires are already burning, allowing her to kill someone by trapping them in a burning room.
• In RWBY Chibi, Nora requests that Ruby make her coffee from scratch. Ruby is suspicious, but does it anyway. As she finishes, Ren races up to warn Ruby that he told Nora not to make any more coffee; as a result, she's getting other people to make coffee for her. Ruby tells Ren that this error is all his.
• A big problem in The Salvation War is that nobody has made laws pertaining to the dead, which causes quite a few legal headaches.
  • Another time, a British colonel tried to take over the command of Free Hell, only to be stopped by Julius Ceaser who points out that because of the amount of people under his command, he is technically a general.
• Multiple anomalies detained in the SCP Foundation are contained using weaknesses and quirks about them.
  • SCP-055 is some sort of anti-memetic entity, meaning it automatically erases all memories of itself when not in direct observation (this includes photographs, notes, and illustrations), so no one can remember what it is. However, a researcher realized they could remember what it wasn't if they knew it was an anti-meme. Unfortunately what they've found is that it isn't round, isn't alive, isn't safe, and isn't contained.
  • SCP-1120 can bust through walls in their quest to assimilate humans, but refuse to break anything's bones. All known instances are kept in hanging cages of concrete and human bones.
  • The SCP Foundation wiki once held a "Short Works Contest," where all entries had to be less than 500 words, with the winner featured on the main page. SCP-2521, or "●●|●●●●●|●●|●," managed to win the contest by being composed of nothing but pictures, thus coming in at zero words. ^note In-universe, this is because SCP-2521 is an entity which steals all written and verbal documentation on it (including someone reading it aloud) and can transcend physical boundaries to do so, but can't understand info rendered in pictograph form. Although it was understandably met with contention for not really being in the spirit of the contest, readers loved it, people praised its unique concept, it won the contest and got featured, and now is one of the highest-rated pages on the site.
• Skippy's List has examples:
  124. Two drink limit does not mean first and last.
  125. Two drink limit does not mean two kinds of drinks.
  126. Two drink limit does not mean the drinks can be as large as I like.
  127. "No Drinking Of Alcoholic Beverages" does not imply that a Jack Daniel's® IV is acceptable.
  135. An order to put polish on my boots means the whole boot.
• Skeletor competes in a Pokémon match.
• After being inundated with annoying Confession Bear image macros in the meme thread, Something Awful followed Reddit's lead(!) and declared a "No Bear Macros" week. People immediately began looking for loopholes:
  "Only Confession Bear?" — All bears
  "Does Spurdo count?" — He's a badly-drawn Pedobear (not some kind of weird otter like that person thought) so yes
  "Do hairy men count?" — ....
  "What about a very small picture of a bear, a — shall we say — micro image?" — No (grudgingly)
  "How about a funny picture of a bear (not Confession Bear or any other meme-related bear) without words?" — No (very grudgingly)
  • After the last one the moderator promptly issued a ban on all bear-related pictures
    Brother Johnathan: AAAAAAAHHH!! Immediate rules change No bears at all. None. No bear pictures, no bear macros, no bear memes.
  • Of course, someone promptly posted a picture of an anime character◊ who apparently skirts the rules...^note It's Teddie from Persona 4
    Missing Name: Fuck, I don't know whether this would count or not. He isn't... anything, but at the same time, he wears a bear suit on occasion, and makes horrible bear puns, but he's not a bear
  • ...and a Chicago Bear, and a bear-centric sorceress.
• Texts from Superheroes: Sure, the fact that Wonder Woman technically doesn't exist under the law means she can't testify against Lex Luthor. But it also means she can fly her invisible plane into his house.
• More than a few entries on the list of Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG start with the phrase, "Even if the rules allow it..."
• The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles: Once the football game leaves the stadium, the teams start introducing interesting interpretations of existing rules.
  • When Dante Hall is pressing forward alone, he hangs the ball from the ceiling every night while he sleeps, to keep it in play.
  • The CFL has rules limiting how many Americans can play on any given team, but no limit on the number of Canadians. The Montreal Alouettes and Atlantic Schooners exploit this by fielding teams with thousands of Canadian players.
  • The Nova Scotians form their own impromptu team—calling themselves the Atlantic Schooners, after the franchise which would have been located in their province, but got dissolved before playing a single game. They try to intercept the Argonauts, reasoning that if they get possession of the ball, then the CFL has to recognize the Schooners as a real team.
  • Under bound-for-street rules, a team's former players also count as eligible receivers. And in the case of Leland Melvin, someone who just trained with a team for a few months still counts as a "former player".
• On We're Alive, Kelly falls asleep on guard duty and doesn't hear Latch and Scratch knocking at the door. Michael threatens to kick Kelly out for violating the rules, only for Kelly (a lawyer) to point out that the rules say that while everyone has to take turns on guard duty there's no rule against sleeping on duty.
• Whateley Universe:
  • Elaine E. Nalley is so notorious for doing this at Whateley Academy that the headmistress gave her the codename Loophole. As a Rules Lawyer, this can cause problems. Eventually, she discovers that the administration believes in Rule Zero.
  • Jobe Wilkin's mandatory school codename is... Jobe Wilkins. It's not just megalomania, given his notoriety as the only son^note At least at first, this is Whateley after all of the setting's Captain Ersatz of Dr. Doom he figures he's not going to go unrecognized in any event.
  • Second only to Loophole is one Jadis Diabolik, codenamed 'She-Beast'. She takes very stringent pains to remain on the right side of the rules - and when she sees an opportunity, she'll twist them to take it. At one point she gets around the Whateley 'profit' rules by soliciting a gift worth about 2 million dollars, in exchange for a favour. This runs in the family: her father, Dr. Diabolik, maintains a legal team feared and reviled by innumerable federal prosecutors.
• Will You Press The Button? is a website with a simple premise: you are given a button to press. Pressing it will reward you with something awesome, but will often have negative consequences, so you must decide whether the pros outweigh the cons. Naturally, people have been finding ways to get around the cons of choices and posting their methods in the comments section. For example, one button will give you the ability to fly, stop time, and conjure whatever you want at the snap of a finger, but every time you use these powers, a poor, hungry child somewhere will die. The top comment is someone declaring that their first use of this power would be summoning enough food and money for every poor, hungry child in the world, so they would only have to kill one off.
• The main page image is also used for the YTMND, “Math is Pwned!”
• Epithet Erased:
  • Ramsey tries to get out of his bounty and thus Zora's attention by "turning himself in"...in Redwood Run, a town where the sheriff could not find his ass with both hands, meaning he gets a Luxury Prison Suite and said sheriff cheerfully does whatever he asks and ushers in criminals to have their stuff appraised. When Zora comes to town looking for the Amulet, she specifically takes a few minutes out of her hunt to mock Ramsey for thinking it would work.
  • In Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic, Naven protests in an early chapter that Molly is using his lessons for evil. Molly points out that he never actually said not to do that.
  • The Spelling Bee's contest in Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic has the last round as a Sudden Contest Format Change because Phoenica crushed the first two rounds: instead of having to spell a difficult word, she has to pick a word that the Spelling Bee can't get. It has to be a word Phoenica knows how to spell, it can't be something she made up herself, and it has to be a word that Lorelai, the world's creator, could reasonably have encountered. So Phoenica picks "Feenie", her nickname: she knows how to spell it, Lori has presumably been in the room at least once when she was referred to as it, and it was made up by her parents.

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