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WARNING: As an ending trope, every example is a spoiler. Read at your own risk!


Animorphs
  • All Assorted Animorphs AUs:
    • In "What if they were college aged?", most of the team never bother morphing, Ax drowns because there's no-one to rescue him, and Tobias is the last free human by the end.
    • By the end of "What if they were all adults?", multiple cities have been destroyed, several Animorphs are already dead, and there are only a few hundred free humans left by the time the Andalites show up and blow up Earth.
    • "What if the yeerks got to Ax before the Animorphs did?" ends with the events of The Decision, specifically when the Animorphs end up on the Ascalin. Without Ax there to vouch for them and unintentionally influence Samilin's actions, they're all subsequently Thrown Out the Airlock to die.

Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra

  • Republic City Blues: Asami must pretend to be dead, and both Asami and Korra have to play along with Captain Beifong's demands. If they don't, Korra will be framed for murder and bloodbending, and Asami will go to prison for the rest of her life - or she'll be murdered in prison before she can die of old age, which is more likely. It's not like they can just leave Republic City either; Captain Beifong will make it impossible for Korra to stay in the Southern Water Tribe by making Korra look like a Corrupt Cop taking bribes, and will run her father out with her. If that doesn't work, she'll use her influence to make Korra look like a monster so that she and her parents are run out of the Southern Water Tribe.
  • Still Stand in the Sun: The ending of the story verges on this, as despite having escaped from the Waterbender Prison, Katara has no way of getting back home to the South Pole. And without Katara around to free Aang from the iceberg, things don't look too good for the rest of the world...

Cardcaptor Sakura

  • Frozen ends with Sakura’s death from the same disease that took the life of her mother, with Sayoran taking his own life a day later.

CLANNAD

  • I Couldn’t Live Without You is an even more tragic alternate ending where Tomoya is broken beyond repair by a drunk Akio’s extremely cruel speech that blames him for Nagisa’s death three years earlier and for just leaving Ushio with Akio and Sanae instead of taking responsibility as her father, and commits suicide. Even though Ushio survives unlike the bad ending of the original universe, she is now an orphan who’ll never get to know either of her parents, Sanae and Akio will always have to raise her on their own with both Nagisa and Tomoya dead, and worst of all, once Akio is sober and learns of Tomoya’s death, he is going to have to live with his guilt of causing his son-in law’s suicide for the rest of his life.

Crossover

  • Equestria Ninja Girls (My Little Pony: Equestria Girls & Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles): Or Epilogues in this case. Also doubles as Sequel Hook.
    • At the end of the first fic the Rainbooms and Twilight's human counterpart arrive in Equestria and tell Twilight and their pony counterparts that the earth and everyone they loved was destroyed, caused by the Triceratons unleashing the Blackhole Generator.
    • And at the epilogue of Turtles of Everfree the Rainbooms are called by the Leo, informing them about Splinter's death at the hands of Super Shredder.
    • In the last epilogue of Equestria Batgirls, Kraang Subprime meets and teams up with fellow rouge utrom Bixilio to get revenge on the Turtles and Rainbooms.
    • At the epilogue of Equestria Ninja Girls on a Yacht, Grogar revives the Dark Turtles to join his Legion of Doom in preparation for the Turtles eventual return to Equestria.
  • Friendship Is Grievous (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic & Star Wars): Equestria survives, but thousands are dead and Palpatine got exactly what he wanted.
  • The Truth Behind The Lie (Doctor Who & The Neverending Story): Fantasia is destroyed and the Empress loses her memories, essentially reducing her to a blank slate that Tecteun will exploit in the name of science.

The DCU

  • In the limited series titled Lex Luthor Triumphant Lois Lane gets an interview with Lex Luthor, 8 months after Superman vanished without a trace. During the 12 chapter saga we find out that he captured Superman and mined his body for commercial gain, took over the Fortress of Solitude and reverse-engineered everything for science and profit, faced and defeated Batman, bought out Wayne Enterprises, thoroughly defeated Wonder Woman in court and defeated a Superman rescue by Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman and Wonder Woman. In the final chapter, he is aware that the fight against the costumed interlopers is a never-ending one, but as a self-made billionaire, he knows he lives in a cutthroat world and only idiots stay still to count their blessings. The Golden Age of Superheroes is over, but Luthor's machinations brought a spectacular age for humanity.

Death Note

Digimon

Disney Animated Canon

  • The Bolt Chronicles: Uniquely in this series, "The Survivor" ends unhappily with no bittersweet leavening. Mittens is abandoned in a Manhattan alley left struggling to survive, her owners having died in a fiery drunken driving auto wreck and her dog friend Petey and his owner having moved away.
  • By the Hands of the People: Anna and Elsa are captured by revolutionaries who are afraid of the latter's ice powers and executed by a firing squad.
  • Kingdom of Isolation: "The Burning Man" has successfully killed the Snow Queen, with all the ice creations melting down in the process. But by then, the Arendelle kingdom has all been turned into a shell of its former self, with every living things, people or plants either disappeared or died from the frostbite. And Kristoff is the only living thing left alive.

Five Nights at Freddy's

  • Springtrap and Deliah: In heavy contrast to the Light Ending, the Dark Ending ends the story on a rather sour note: Springtrap finally snaps and decides to kill Deliah so she can be with him forever as a spirit, with the last page of this ending featuring Deliah claiming she hates Springtrap and wishes she never met him before he goes for the kill. To add insult to injury, the author confirmed that she considers this to be the story's true ending. However, the author also encourages people to make their own decision about which ending is canon to them.

Friday Night Funkin'

  • Every week in Friday Night Funkin': Corruption ends with Corrupted Boyfriend's opponent being corrupted or Killed Off for Real. The final battle of Week 7 then ends with the entire world being corrupted. Subverted starting in Week 8, where the real Boyfriend breaks free from the Corruption's grip and begins to reverse the damage it caused.
  • Friday Night Funkin': Mario's Madness ends with nobody happy, not even the victorious Big Bad. Boyfriend and Girlfriend are both killed, Pico is still fighting for his life in Super Horror Mario's haunted game world, and even SHM himself just feels hollow after finally getting his revenge on Daddy Dearest, having nothing but his subjugated souls for company.

Girls und Panzer

  • Girls und Panzer: Hope Dies starts with Miho being murdered, and only gets worse from there. Erika is abducted and tortured to force her to confess to Miho's murder, resulting in Kuromorimine attacking Oarai to get her back. Worse, it turns out that Erika wasn't the one who killed Miho; Yukari was, simply because Miho rejected her, due to already being in a relationship with Erika. In the end, Oarai gets shut down anyway, Yukari is hanged, those who kidnapped and tortured Erika are sentenced to 10-20 years in prison (except for Kinuyo, who reported them), Anzu loses her mind, and Naomi gets hit by a truck. Considering that the fic is listed as a Drama/Tragedy fic, the fact that it has this kind of ending shouldn't be a surprise.

Godzilla

  • Abraxas: Empty Fullness: Ghidorah's origin story one-shot ends with Ghidorah completely traumatized by everything the Makers put them through, with the guarantee that more is on the way and it'll never end until they're so far gone that an ending doesn't matter anymore; and Ichi hits his breaking point and lashes out at San for the very first time, screaming that it's San's fault they're in their living hell to begin with. Meanwhile, an entire planet has been killed off, and the blood is on a shaken Ghidorah's talons. The only faint positive sliver in the ending is that Ghidorah is about to return to the Makers and eradicate them as well for everything that they did.

Gorillaz

  • Just Over the Stars has one that has shades of a Bittersweet Ending but really leans more towards a Downer Ending: 2D dies in his sleep, but he is with Murdoc, so he died happy. However, Noodle and Russell are implied to be dead or at least missing, and Murdoc kills himself at the end.

Harvest Moon

  • The Dark Fic Auschwitz is set during during World War 2. Gale is a young Jewish boy living in 1942 France. When Gale and his parents are captured and sent to a concentration camp, Gale meets various other characters, such as Marlin and Kasey. It ends with Gale and Molly being gassed together.

Hetalia: Axis Powers

  • Soviet Insanity: While Web of Delusions does end with Lithuania finally being rescued, he's already suicidal, emotionally exhausted, and generally broken beyond repair; then, once he's out, he is rejected by Belarus. He...does not take it well.

Invader Zim

  • Witching Hour: Princess Gaz is burned at the stake after being successfully framed for witchcraft by Zim, who mentally gloats how this will leave the kingdom unstable and vulnerable to his conquest of it.

Kill la Kill

  • From Kill la Kill AU, we have the ending to comic 41, which has Ryuuko sick and hospitalized, as her condition gets worse. To further caps this off, she wished to be the "sick one" instead of Satsuki, which ends as one would expect.
  • Rest can be described as a fanfic that "begins sweet, yet ends sad", which it does, as the fic has a rather heartbreaking ending, with the implications that Ryuuko was Dead All Along, leaving Satsuki behind with her ghost and a bittersweet memory.

The Loud House

Mean Girls

Mega Man

  • Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race has Episode 10. While Wily's plan is stopped, an innocent girl was harmed in the carnage, and Mega Man blames himself. And even worse, Wily tortures Proto Man.

My Hero Academia

  • Keep Your Friends Close: Izuku and Hatsume eliminate all of the Double Agents (every member of the villain team besides themselves) one by one, with Izuku donning makeup and a backup voice changer to look and sound like Shinso, who he eliminates himself with a gun rigged to backfire. Izuku (as Shinso) proceeds to lure the heroes into a trap, picking them off one-by-one to win the exercise. Despite having won (achieving most, if not all, of the ten objectives, plus the formerly-included identity theft objective, and avoiding capture or "death"), Izuku's trust in his classmates is irreparably shaken, as he offers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech before walking off.
    • The alternative ending, "Bad ending", in which Izuku didn't know about the Double Agent situation until it was too late, is similarly a downer. While in the original ending, Izuku's shaken faith in his classmates is at least cushioned by the fact he knew they were Double Agents, here he is abruptly faced with the realization that his friends and classmates were all willing to lie to him for multiple weeks just to win an exam. As if the betrayal realization wasn't pain enough, Izuku has absolutely failed the exam; there's a 25% penalty to your score for being on the losing team, and since Izuku didn't plan around his teammates not completing objectives (since he had no reason to suspect they weren't completing objectives), he definitely didn't do well enough to pass regardless. He delivers a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech before wandering off to be alone (although Hatsume does go after him).

My Little Pony

  • Shows up in two different stories by Kalash93.
    • Last One Standing is the more heartwrenching of the two. It is considered one of the saddest stories in the fandom.
    • Shell Shock is less likely to make you sob than it is to make you scream while tears stream down your face. Fluttershy succumbs to the madness around her and kills an unarmed, defenseless, colt while he is desperately trying to escape being massacred by soldiers.
  • Beyond the Wall: Fairy Dust is killed by the villagers for trying to venture outside the wall, and Whisperleaf decides to carry on being a good little pony and not think about what's beyond the wall any longer.
  • The Cymbal Dragon: The Mane Six are trapped in Fluttershy's cottage and are seemingly killed when the ceiling collapses.
  • The Mother Of Many Faces plays with this. It's left ambiguous weather or not Chrysalis succeeded in killing Celestia and taking her place.
  • No Regrets for Sunset, a story where Sunset Shimmer never fled through the mirror after being banished, big time. She loses her mind and does nothing but paint pictures of Celestia and herself, wanting nothing but Celestia to forgive her and take her back as her student. Celestia, upon meeting Sunset years later does neither of those, so Sunset decides to kill herself on the balcony outside Celestia's room to spite her. Royal Guards notice her corpse and get rid of it before Celestia notices, however. The story ends with Celestia having changed her mind, sending Sunset a letter saying that she's forgiven and that she'd take her as a student once again.
  • Twilight Revised features one, made worse by the preceding Hope Spot. The Bad Guy Wins, and Twilight gets sealed in the sun with Celestia. Might possibly count as a Bittersweet Ending, since Celestia was the only pony Twilight ever loved, and it's implied that Twilight still loves her despite everything Nightmare Moon put her through.
  • The Writing on the Wall, which relies on a combination of Downer Ending and Fridge Horror via its Gut Punch ending. Daring Do's Wrong Genre Savvy has led to Ahuizotl and herself exploring a nuclear waste dump left behind by a now-lost humanity. Ahuizotl's already dead from radiation poisoning — and, as it ends, Daring Do herself is dying from the same.
  • Vampiolence: Sure, Voron and Vellum were both killed... but so was Octavia, rendering everything Vinyl went through to save her pointless. A devastated Vinyl embarks on a quest to rid Equestria of the rest of Voron's (unknowing) offspring. She's remorseful in doing this, but sees it as Necessarily Evil, intent on ending it with herself with the hopes she and Octavia can be Together in Death.

The Owl House

Pokémon

  • Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Power Trip (link): Squirtle has to leave his best friend Quill forever, because his goal was to prevent human contamination of the alpha preserve, but he contaminated the preserve simply by being there and acting like a human. The story ends with Quill begging Squirtle not to leave, or to take Quill with him as Squirtle leaves in a chopper. Word of God says that they never meet again.

Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja

  • Killer Chimps In Norrisville (link): Ends with OC Niall Warburton betraying his morals as a pacifist and killing a chimp to save the Ninja, after which he suffers a mental breakdown.

RWBY

  • Fallen Petals: At the fic's end; Mistral has been ravaged by a gang war which claimed civilian lives, Haven Academy is completely destroyed, the Kingdom of Mistral is now under Ruby's criminal empire as she sets her sights on conquering the rest of the world, Yang's mission to either redeem or arrest her wayward beloved sister has ended in complete failure (with the latter implicitly threatening to kill her if she doesn't throw in the towel), and Ruby is reduced to tears as she's completely alone with Neo dead and her last link to her old life cut off for good. There are a few silver linings, though: Neo and Roman are reunited in the afterlife, Teams _WBY and JNPR (one of whom recently became a fully-fledged Maiden) are mobilizing to combat Ruby if she comes for Vale, and Salem has been completely crippled with everyone on her council now either dead or having defected to Ruby's side.

The Sims

  • Arc 3 of The Racket-Rotter Chronicles ends this way: The Builder gets away with the deaths they caused. Additionally, Shark breaks up with Sinbad after finding out he and Dennis were former criminals.

The Slender Man Mythos

Sonic the Hedgehog

Steven Universe

  • Cleaves, Cuts and Cracks has a rather subtle one. When all seems well and fine after a strenuous battle that caused much damage on Spinel, a rather simple and easily forgettable line rings back. "These damages are permanent."

Super Mario Bros.

Supernatural

  • Under the Big Top: Castiel commits suicide, and Dean is left cradling his body as he reflects on the past.

Super Smash Bros.

Teen Titans (2003)

The Railway Series/Thomas & Friends

  • At times, episodes of Engines Together can dive into this.
    • "Gone Too Far" ends with Bear having a nasty crash thanks to Sir Handel's actions with Sir Handel himself being banished to the Blue Mountain Quarry.
    • "Diesel Strikes Back” has Oliver land himself in massive trouble after attacking Diesel in return for the shunter attacking Emily.

Warhammer 40,000

  • The fan film Damnatus ends with a powerful daemon getting unleashed upon Sancta Heroica, everyone on the team getting killed off, and the planet itself being destroyed via the Exterminatus order of Inquisitor Lessus. Par for the course for 40K.

When the Wind Blows

Other

  • The fanvid POP Culture ends with Cassie's career going down the drain and her committing suicide.

Unsorted

  • The first installment of the To Love Ru fan fic, To Love DEATH looks like most of the characters will be saved, until zombies attack Rito's unrequited love, Haruna, forcing him to end her life. Then a zombie attacks the helicopter and kills Nana in front of her sister. Rito can't help do anything but faint. That's how it ends. This is quite a comparison to its happier original medium, after all, this is a Fan Fiction made by Mr Law.
  • Clean Your Room has Dagded wipe out Chikyu single-handedly at the behest of his progenitor, seemingly leaving Gira as the Sole Survivor. Then Dagded remembers that Gira is still there, at which point the fic ends.
  • Disappearing Doctor: Oh, boy. Kim gets shot, Ron runs away to Yamanouchi to make himself more than just a burden, Shego has her soul ejected from her body and gets fifty years of her life stolen by Angela Lipsky, who also gets her powers in the deal and is now at large. And it started out so well, too.
  • While Earth and humanity go through a more Bittersweet Ending in The Conversion Bureau: Not Alone, Equestria definitely gets this type of ending when the story wraps up. Although the they're able to safely make it back to their home dimension in one piece, their military is nearly completely decimated thanks to the war against humanity, and in their hasty retreat, the princesses were forced to leave roughly three thousand Equestrian ponies plus eight hundred newfoals behind to an uncertain future on Earth. On top of that, the population is revealed to be losing their faith in Celestia and Luna, and the zebra and gryphon kingdoms are not very happy to hear about the princesses' Assimilation Plot. The story closes off with the gryphon queen writing a letter to Celestia stating that Celestia's Omniscient Morality License has been revoked and that she will "know accountability for the first time."
    • And as the sequel The Conversion Bureau: Conquer the Stars shows, things get even worse. First, all the other countries in Equis launch a massive economic embargo against Equestria, forcing the heavily import-dependent country to become self-sufficient for the first time in ages (and not doing very well at it), all the while dealing with scarcities of several different resources in the meantime. Some time later, negotiations were re-established for the next five years, during which things seemed like they'd be okay... only for, on the fifth Hearth's Warming Eve, all nations to declare war on Equestria simultaneously. The following campaign was so devastating to Equestrianote  that the Princesses were forced to relocate to another planet. Said planet is a barely habitable freezing ice ball that's infested with dangerous monsters which are only kept away by the Barrier. And even then, the relocation was done by leaving several pieces of Equestria, like the entirety of Appleloosa and literally half of Hoofington, behind. By the time the USS Calvin discovers Equestria, the country is ravaged by civil war, extremely impoverished, has lost use of the Elements of Harmony, and a resistance movement is midway through a plan to "bring the Princess to her miserable knees".
  • In the Naruto fanfiction the first half of canon New Blood written by JFalcon ends with konoha being taken over, sand destroyed and plenty of characters dead, turned traitors or their fates ambigious. So with a complete and total loss for the heroes.
    • Although the second half being somewhat lighter, many beloved characters still end up dying, such as Ryu, one of the most noble and unambigiously good characters despite working for Orochimaru.
  • One of 3 endings in Dyl Man's What the Ed...?
  • A fanfic from Villains' Bad Girl's Family Guy fan series, Brian and Barbara, called "Memories" features one where the OC character Barbara dies of a heart attack from overeating out of depression from the death of Brian (who, in the fanfics, was her mate), and Vinny still doesn't get any love from her kids, as he didn't get any love from Barbara when she was alive, even when he becomes their foster father at the end of the fanfic. However, after DecaTilde re-obtained the rights to the Brian and Barbara series from Villains' Bad Girl on May of 2018 after he found out she doesn't take requests, he moved the downer ending to a new fanfic (as a sort of deleted scene) and gave "Memories" a better, Happy Ending where Barbara survives her heart attack and her daughter Briana befriends the dog Barbara lost her fighting dog title to, Arnie.
  • That Guy with the Glasses in Space: After The Nostalgia Critic travels back in time and it seems like he has prevented the beginning of the war from happening, Ask That Guy discovers the Critic's dead body, realizes that he's from the future, and muses on how it would be fun if he and Doctor Insano made everyone from the TGWTG site immortal so that they could fight each other for all eternity. At the very least, it leaves the reader a bit uncertain or worried about what happens after that.
  • Part 2 of Clash of the Elements, which ends suddenly with the revelation that Alex Whiter sacrificed himself to destroy his evil counterpart.
  • The Star Trek New Voyages episode has Chekhov afflicted with Rapid Aging which causes him to die at the end of the episode. The final scene after the closing credits, however, reveals that most of the episode may be All Just a Dream.
  • Star Fox fanfic The Friend has three endings. Two are bittersweet and one is a complete downer...Ending B, where the protagonist is forced to kill his best friends for his own survival, allowing Star Wolf to roam free in Lylat, with nothing to stop them.
  • Small World is an unusually dark story in The CATverse, focusing on the Scarecrow's mother Karen Keeny and her young daughter Marilyn being pursued by her murderous son, and ends on an extremely bleak note for what is generally a humor-focused series. Karen is murdered, strangled to death, and Marilyn, one of the most innocent characters in the series, is left scarred by the experience and driven to insanity, and is last seen crying alone. The Scarecrow's henchgirls are disturbed by his actions but unable to do anything to help her and risk angering him. The only real hope left open for her is that she wasn't killed, and even that's more Cruel Mercy from Crane than anything else.
  • The Sun and Moon are Harsh Mistresses: Yes, the Princesses let Trixie go in the end, but not before subjecting her to one last, humiliating, off-screen punishment. They get virtually no comeuppance for everything they put Trixie through, release her back into the world bitter, angry, and not even close to reformed, and despite having all but spelled out her domineering plans for revenge, they don't seem to notice or care at all. As if that wasn't bad enough, her angry rant and the sack of gold she "earns" implies that the end of this story directly precedes Magic Duel, which means that Trixie's reign of terror over Ponyville and all its inhabitants, as well as her ending right back up in the dungeons as a result, can all be indirectly traced back to the Princess' careless treatment of her. Turns out Sombra wasn't too far off about them being just as bad as him.
  • The Ranma ½ fanfic The Bitter End, as the title suggests, ends badly. Akane ends up snapping and murdering Ranma and Ukyo, and ends up gets committed to an insane asylum.
  • There's a Man in the Woods is already quite dark, but Final Moments manages to top that when the teacher kills Sid, only to learn too late that his actions were witnessed by another student, who has been traumatized to the point where she has had to be pulled out of school. The teacher is guilt-stricken for the rest of his life - which isn't very long, as he is executed via electric chair.
  • Played for Laughs in My Little Pony: Totally Legit Recap: "28 Pranks Later", which ends with the entire town having an existential crisis and one pony even saying god has forsaken them. Cut to black.
  • Raindrops ends with Satsuki being left to muse on Ryuuko's death and the events prior. Its sequel,Sunshine, however, ends on a more bittersweet note.
  • No One Breaks My Heart Like You: The ending of the first chapter. After Peter and Mary Jane divorce, Mary Jane is sad and alone at a cast party, due to there being some gossip about her divorce. Barbara drives her home, and Mary Jane goes to bed, depressed and missing Peter by her side, in tears.
  • Into My Heart:
    • Ann's story ends with Ann having her heart broken because Ryan is in love with Nina, not her.
    • In Nina's oneshot, Jack can't get his heart into being farmer and returns back home. He gives Nina a Love Letter before he leaves.
    • In Ellen's story, Jack acts as the best man at Ellen's wedding, despite having unrequited feelings for her himself.
  • Paragon (Kim Possible) ends with Kim's entire family dead, Ron technically being dead, and Josh Mankey also dead. Kim and Ron-in-Josh's-body are Driven to Suicide in a Suicide Pact.
  • Frank's Night Out ends with Frank failing to save his penis, almost everyone aside from Greg, Frank and Rodrick are dead, and Frank becomes a serial killer.
  • One and Only Son: The Black Rebellion is quelled, Lelouch is captured and Alexander fails to protect Cornelia and is defeated by Hamid.
  • Viva La Vida: The initial, intended ending of the story has a The Bad Guy Wins situation — Olive manages to successfully get away with her theft of Precinct 13579's power cantaloupe, causing Headquarters to lose power for good, and also takes part in a Redemption Rejection as she mocks Otto and makes it very clear that she's not coming back to Odd Squad, completing her Face–Heel Turn in the process. The story then ends with Olive and Odd Todd leaving to eat the power cantaloupe together for dinner.

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