Precision F Strike / Webcomics

"Joe, if—if I ever say a dirty word, I want it t-to have meaning. At least if or when I say anything like that, people will know I'm actually upset. It will have power."

— Joyce Brown, Dumbing of Age

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• El Goonish Shive
  • Grace swearing while playing Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS catches the rest of the characters off-guard:
    Grace: "DIE BY THE SHELLS OF YOUR FALLEN COMRADES YOU @#$! TURTLES!"
  • Considering Grace never swore, The first time she actually did was a bit of a shock to most of the present cast, even though it was merely a Precision D Strike.
  • When Rhoda discovered that both Diane and Lucy already knew about her relationship with Catalina, she was pissed. Even though the word itself is censored, it still has a fair bit of impact due to how shy and meek Rhoda usually is (warning: Link is fairly spoiler-heavy).
• Bob and George have made a running joke out of this with "Roll says the F word".
  • In fact, in the commentaries the author invokes the idea behind this trope, and only drops the F-Bomb (uncensored, at least) about once a year, in a dramatically appropriate context. Dave Anez abandoned this rule during the final year-and-a-half of the comic—which indicated/foreboded just how badly the crap was hitting the fan.
• Dominic Deegan:
  • Invoked in this strip, the one time where someone's cursing wasn't cut short or in untranslated Orcish.
  • And now they have done it a second time, here. Mookie, the author, comments that he didn't want to do it, but considering the character and the situation, it was the only word that would fit.
  • And the comic's first real F-bomb, here. As the author said, "I make no apologies and neither does [the character]."
  • Rocky doesn't speak, but he finds other ways to get his point across.
• In Erfworld, after being forced to replace all his curses with "boop" the entire time he's been Trapped in Another World, where reality itself is censored, Parson concludes his Screw Destiny speech (and the first book) with a very satisfying "Fuck... You!!"
• Gunnerkrigg Court:
  • Kat has a barely-censored Precision B Strike in this strip. This level of on-screen profanity is a rare instance for her.
  • In chapter 72, when Annie finds out that she's been inside an illusion, she curses, something she'd never been shown doing before.
• Harry Potter Comics: Downplayed in that it's censored. Rose has been getting crap from people off-and-on for being sorted into Hufflepuff. The final straw is when she pulls Helga Hufflepuff's 101 Soufflé Recipes out of the Sorting Hat and the hat says only a true Hufflepuff could have done that.
  Rose Weasley: Gryffindors get a sword. I get a cookbook. That is ***ing it. HUFFLEPUFF!
• Questionable Content only manages to pull this off because it's Hannelore.
• Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name example: Though the characters swear plenty of times in the comic, it's usually censored. Hanna delivers an uncensored F-strike when trying to bring Conrad back to life, meant to reflect the seriousness of the situation. It works.
• Throughout its over five-year run, Penny and Aggie has used swearwords sparingly, and has never printed them uncensored. (This was justified in its first two years, at any rate, when the creators were trying to get it syndicated.) However, in early 2010 there were two notable exceptions for dramatic purposes:
  • The bigoted, mentally disturbed Hubbard-follower Xena uses the N-word uncensored. (This results in her getting knocked unconscious in the very next strip.)
  • Social outcast Helen's bitter inner monologue, as she runs away, ends with the words "Fuck you, Penny. Fuck you, Belleville. Goodbye." Particularly unexpected as her monologue begins with the milder "Screw you."
  • A later example occurs when Sara, overwhelmed by the multiple stresses her reality show has placed on her, says "Shit" as she breaks down crying in Rich's arms.
• In Burning Stickman Presents... Something!, The Watcher utters one when one of the protagonists knocks the storyline off the rails by ensuring Colonel's, and therefore Iris's, survival during the events of Mega Man X4.
• Housepets!: New dog/human trapped in a dog's body King delivers a censored, Atomic strike in the 2009 Christmas arc.
• This page of The Gods of Arr-Kelaan, after the temple the dwarves had built suddenly collapsed.
• Jessie to Carrie on this strip of Loserz
• Sluggy Freelance manages to make it a Moral Event Horizon, Despair Event Horizon and the de facto moment of Cerebus Syndrome for the whole strip: [1]
• Lampshaded in this Goblins strip.
• This exchange from 8-Bit Theater is actually the first time in the entire lifespan of the work where the word fuck is actually used without any form of censorship:
  Dragon: Blarg! I'm a dragon! Or twelve!
  Red Mage: Impossible! Only a maximum of nine enemies may be onscreen!
  Dragon: Fuck you.
  Red Mage: Run.
  • Another one comes later.
  Sarda: I was going to give you the illusion of a fighting chance. But now I'd rather your final moments were ones of complete despair.
  Black Mage: Mission accomplished, Sarda.
  Sarda: I haven't done it yet.
  Black Mage: Oh. Fuck.
• In Homestuck, while most of the characters swear fairly liberally, there are also a few characters who have only done so a few times. However, whenever a server player starts the game for the first time, the first thing they do is usually tear out their client player's toilet, and let loose an "oh fuck". Rose and Jade demonstrate.
  • The memorable moment in which Rose lets loose the power of the Thorns Of Oglogoth
    "WELCOME TO THE PARTY MOTHERFUCKERS"
  • Rose has another one when talking to Dave about her plan.
  TT: I will be travelling to the sun
  TT: By which I do mean the GREEN MOTHERFUCKING SUN.
  • And Jade again here, although it's implied she's much less merciful when talking to Karkat...
  GG: I SAID PASSWORD FUCKASS!!!!!
  GA: Wow
  GG: whoops sorry
  GG: ive been having too many password arguments with karkat i guess :p
  • Kanaya gets one, too here.
  KANAYA: No
  KANAYA: See I'm Explaining This Badly
  KANAYA: All I'm Saying Is Basically
  KANAYA: Just
  KANAYA: Fuck That Guy
  • Of all people, Equius gets one as well.
  CT: D —> Where the fuck are all my fresh towels
  • After she finds out that her ex-boyfriend has turned (even more) evil and is trying to join the Big Bad, Feferi uses one.
  • Karkat Vantas, the most profane character to ever grace a comic, has a lot of throwaway insults. His first speech with John Egbert, however, is a Shakespearean experience.
• Done by someone less than ten (Cloud's sister Yuna) in Sandra and Woo, but immediately followed by an apology when she learns how rude it was to call the watchers "motherfuckers".
• In The Order of the Stick, this could be considered one, considering that it's right after Haley regains her voice. Also a This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!!
  • Also, this strip.
  • This one, as well, in the last panel.
  • A literal, albeit censored, one in the last panel, overlapping with Cluster F-Bomb.
• The Interstellar Tea House goes its first year without even a mild curse word (in English, anyway), then suddenly Pumpkin has an Oh, Crap! moment and drops an f-bomb. Made intentionally amusing by the fact that Pumpkin is a Sierk, a sentient but furry and adorable alien.
• A comedic example in High Class Homos: The normally soft and gentle prince August lets one loose when he realises he forgot to let his love interest, Percy in on his and Sapphia’s fake marriage plan, resulting in Percy thinking August genuinely loves Sapphia.
• In Off-White, Hati lets one loose after Sköll attacks him.
• In The Illustrated Guide to Law, the in-over-her-head Patty makes heavy use of self-censoring euphemisms ("cheese and crackers!") throughout her police encounter... until she's tossed in jail at the end, which warrants a sulky f-strike.
• Dragon Ball Multiverse: U13 Raditz makes one during his fight against U3 Bardock, when Bardock becomes a Super Saiyan:
  U13 Raditz: Oh fuck... that's so unfair!
• Consolers has a Precision S Strike from Atari in her Oh, Crap! moment right before she goes through The Crash.
• The Draw Play gives us a Precision S Strike when JJ Watt meets a bear in the woods
• In Buster Wilde Weerwolf, a comic that normally uses Symbol Swearing, while Buster and his friends◊ are walking around at night, a car passes by them and someone yells out "FAGS! FAGS! GO HOME, FAGS! HAW HAW!"
• Sorcery 101: The first instance of the word "fuck" is about three-quarters of the way through the story, and is used when Danny finds out that if Seth dies, so does he.
• In Awful Hospital, the normally uptight Millie only speaks in raspy breathings, represented as strings of "hhhhhh" - which Willis then translates. However, upon learning that her "sister" has been busy creating tiny versions of herself, she lets out a "hhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH".
  Willis: ....I'm not a'sposda say that word.
• Steven of all people shouts "Oh. My. Fucking god!" in Ask White Pearl and Steven (almost!) anything when he sees the Tongue Monster at the Beta Kindergarten. Since we hear his foster parents cussing up a storm when he was running away from them, it's safe to say that this Steven grew up around a lot more crude language than his canon counterpart from Steven Universe did.
• Poppy O'Possum: The word "fucking" has appeared exactly once in the comic's 8 chapters. It appeared at all because the Poppyverse equivalent ("chucking") wouldn't have had the right amount of gravitas and impact. The author implied that this would be the only time it would be used in the comic, precisely because of this trope. It was all the more shocking because it came from Queen Kit Darling, who normally acts like an innocent and naïve Princess Classic.

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