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WARNING: Nearly every example is a spoiler. Read at your own risk!

Web originals with their own pages

  • 30 Days in Spring: Every survivor but Ryan and Amelia commits suicide after all the trauma of the woods. Amelia is left wondering if humans are in any way decent when law is taken away. The only really hopeful part of the ending is the implication that Ryan will be arrested for his crimes, but this isn't confirmed.
  • Most stories on Ability No. X end on a depressing, tragic note, with the protagonists suffering by their or others' abilities.
  • The Adventures of a Sword: The story ends with the Big Bad killing all the heroes and likely to continue oppressing the people of Northeast Planet for many more years with no chance of stopping him.
  • In the Arby n' the Chief series finale, things were looking so grim that Arbitur was about to commit suicide but things looked up for him as Claire came back online and promised to play with Arbitur an hour a day. Things were looking up but chief, who just got his voice back, decided he wanted to end it all with a literal bang. The episode ends with Arbitur and the chief saying their goodbyes to each other and chief striking a match in a gas filled room with an explosion and sirens playing as credits rolled.
  • Despite being mostly a cathartic series, ATTACK on MIKA has a few dark endings:
    • After cutting ties with her shopaholic mother and reuniting with her husband who had been working hard to make ends meet with his newborn child, Yuki moved into an apartment together with him. Unfortunately, the doorbell rings and Yuki answers it only to turn out to be her deranged mother with a knife and the story ends with Yuki's screams.
    • A guy reunites with his girlfriend Sakura after escaping from Mana, his stalker. Unfortunately for him, Sakura flashed a creepy grin, implying she is a Yandere as well...
  • At the end of Babushka: the Movie, not only do the impostors kill off the crew, but there's the equivalent of a quick after-credits scene where Corpse Husband, the only confirmed survivor (who agreed not to inform on the impostors at the start because he owed one of them a favor) is left in a Heroic BSoD while the impostors nonchalantly lounge around him. Surrounded by a scene of carnage and the bodies of friends, all Corpse can do is stare straight ahead and whisper, "All my friends are dead." The impostors laugh at that, and that's where the video ends.
  • There is an entire fandom around this trope called "Bad End Friends", where Kid Hero characters of various media are portrayed in the worst ending for them, usually leaving them possessed or insane. The core characters are most likely Bill!Dipper, Beast!Wirt and Ice Prince!Finn. Some other examples include White!Steven, Evil Morty, Chara!Frisk, Button-Eyed!Coraline, Ghost!Norman and Turbo!K.O.
  • Bonus Stage, after first killing off Rya in a cheap and poorly-executed manner, then went on to have Phil go back in time and murder himself in the first episode, resulting in Joel trying to hang himself, being persuaded to keep going and build a machine to resurrect people, then accidentally killing himself ANYWAY, thus erasing the whole series from time. And this was a CHEERIER version of the episode (the original just cut to Joel dangling from the rope after he decided to give up).
  • The British Railway Stories: Episode 15, Day Of The Deltic, ended with Stephen sending Gronk away to Leeds Central, forcing him to leave Copley Hill sheds, which he had considered his home. He then informs the steam engines that Modernization is well under way, he is the last B12 locomotive in existence, and that their days in service will soon be over.
  • Buster Girls: The self-explanatory "Bad End" scenarios end with the titular heroines Brainwashed and Crazy, with the villain responsible now able to wreak havoc with nobody capable of stopping them.
  • The second season of Cobra Kai, when the school brawl ends. While many of the students are physically and psychologically damaged, Miguel and Samantha are actually hospitalized for theirs. Johnny and Daniel make neither eye contact nor any peep the entire time they're in the hospital elevator together, clearly conveying their sense of failure as sensei. It was also a royal case of The Bad Guy Wins, as Kreese regained possession of one dojo while the other was shut down for quite some time.
  • Counterspell: After running away for so long, Black Mage and Bruiser fight and successfully kill the heroes. Upon doing so though, Dragon Prince Daegara remembers the melody to awaken Dedge the Time Serpent, who destroys the crystal of balance and brings the world into an age of ruin.
  • Cracked:
  • Most Creepypastas are this or have a Bittersweet Ending at best. The villain usually wins.
  • Day of the Choosing ends with the protagonist, amongst thousands of other innocents, getting devoured by "All the Rest", with no indication that the entity will stop consuming innocents until the whole planet is destroyed.
  • A few episodes of DEATH BATTLE! end this way.
    • Eggman vs. Wily: After being infected by the Robenenza Virus, Metal Sonic becomes Metal Overlord and goes on a Robenenza Virus-fueled rampage and kills all the combatants, including Eggman and Wily; and most likely, the world is doomed.
    • Shao Khan vs M. Bison. In a case of the worse guy wins, Shao Khan eats Bison's soul, giving him the godly Psycho Powers combined with his previous skills in sorcery. If Shao Khan wasn't dangerous before, now he's virtually immortal and twice as powerful.
    • Godzilla vs Gamera: Gamera gives it his all, and even loses his life, to try and halt Godzilla's rampage. He fails, and it seems unlikely that anything else can stop him.
    • Tigerzord Vs Gundam Epyon: Even though Zechs defeats Tommy Oliver the White Ranger, his girlfriend Noin is now dead, leaving him to cry over her demise amongst the remains of her Gundam, while Zordon mourns the loss of the White Ranger.
    • Ryu Vs Scorpion: In a case of The Bad Guy Wins, Ryu gets trapped in hell and gets incinerated by Scorpion.
    • Hulk Vs Doomsday: In another case of The Bad Guy Winsnote , Doomsday stabs the Hulk repeatedly with his poisoned claws before ripping his head off, after which the monster is free to continue his rampage with nothing else to stop him.
    • The fight between Black Adam and Apocalypse takes place when the latter invades the former's country. The fight ends with Apocalypse brutally stomping Black Adam's body, forcing the barely-alive Anti-Villain to see his country falls into Apocalypse's hand, and vaporizing him with his own Living Lightning.
  • Don't Hug Me I'm Scared:
    • The fourth installment ends with Red Guy dead and Yellow Guy and Duck Guy still trapped in the deteriorating digital world.
    • The fifth installment's ending may be the most depressing one yet. Duck Guy gets grinded into canned food (alive!) and served as lunch for the Yellow Guy. The latter is then force fed every can (unaware that he had just eaten his own friend because he was drugged by the teachers), and ends up sitting in the dark kitchen, completely alone. Afterwards, the mysterious caller (who had been trying to call the two throughout the episode) is revealed to be the absent Red Guy, who had been calling from a phone booth outside. The episode ends with Red Guy, dressed in a trenchcoat and carrying a suitcase, walking away from the phone booth in the rain. It's implied that he was the one who called Duck Guy and Yellow Guy earlier in the episode. Judging by the depressing rainstorm, the somewhat melancholic jazz music, and the fact that he has a suitcase, he's certainly not happy with the results.
    • The sixth and final installment ends with the palette swapped puppets sitting around the table again as the Notebook starts to sing. Nothing has apparently changed, and whether the puppets will be able to escape the endless cycle of torment remains ambiguous. Some theories say that the pallete swap, as well as the removal of a lot of items in the room, represent a new, more lighthearted beginning for the show.
  • In Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Dr. Horrible manages to defeat Captain Hammer and gain entrance into the Evil League of Evil. But in the process, Penny, the girl of his dreams (and the only truly good character in the series) is accidentally killed and all but forgotten by everyone except him. It leaves him emotionally destroyed and completely unable to enjoy his victory (or, indeed, feel anything at all).
  • Einsteinian Roulette ends with the real purpose for the HMRC being revealed, the Eater of Stars moving back towards the Origin, the Lurker exploring the end of the galaxy, and HMRC personnel desperately trying to find another universe before the Lurker changes our own enough that life is physically impossible.
  • Gaming All-Stars:
    • In The Ultimate Crossover, after witnessing the remainder of the heroes getting dispatched by Polygon Man and Andross, Master and Crazy Hand create a devastatingly powerful bomb to destroy the moon, intending on stopping Andross in order to alleviate the Earth of the apocalypse he caused. While the people of Earth are indeed relieved of their troubles, the explosion ends up killing Mario, Sonic, and Crash as well, prompting the people to mourn them and all of the heroes who entered the moon alongside them to combat the ultimate evil.
    • While the ending is seemingly the same in Remastered, it adds a cliffhanger in which Mario, Sonic, Crash, and several others are resurrected, setting up the events for Gaming All Stars 2 and therefore downplaying the doom and gloom this time around.
  • Season 2 of The Guild ends with Codex feeling horrible about breaking Zaboo's heart, seeing the guy she liked making out with her married friend Clara, and then finding Zaboo making out with Stupid Tall Hot Girl. Meanwhile, the guild leader Vork has a breakdown, and Bladezz deleted Tink's character, which, in this series, is just as angsty.

  • Hamster's Paradise: The original sketches (which Tribbetherium has admitted regretting for being pessimistic and is now working on making the final project more optimistic) ends with the mousey micks (the final sapient species of hamster) causing their own extinction due to out-of-control industrialisation, but not before irreversibly destroying the climate of the planet itself, causing a runaway greenhouse effect that ultimately causes the final extinction of all life on the planet.
  • The Helluva Boss episode "OZZIE'S" ends this way. Stolas and Blitzo get spectacularly humiliated at Ozzie's, and after being driven home, an exasperated Blitzo bitterly rejects Stolas's genuine thanks and attempts to comfort him as simply being attempts to get sex out of him, driving off and leaving the demon prince sitting alone on his porch with the realization of how he's made Blitzo feel and the reminder he's lost his family in the process. As Blitzo gets home he finds Loona's out at a party with Tex, Millie and Moxxie are still out on their anniversary date, and he lies down and begins to scroll through photos on his phone, starting with photos featuring Stolas and the rest of I.M.P before moving to several of his younger self alongside a visibly happy Verosika and Fizzarolli, both of which partook in an entire scathing musical number personally calling him a failure in the same episode. The last picture that Blitzo looks at — implied to be a picture of a younger Blitzo and some of his family members — makes him curl up in a Troubled Fetal Position, crying Broken Tears into a pillow, all alone. Cue the end credits.
  • Homestar Runner: In-universe in the first Halloween cartoon, Homestarloween Party, where a scary story is told and each character adds a piece. Strong Sad ends the story by killing everybody off, causing all the attendees to leave in a funk, many of them in tears.
  • JaidenAnimations: In "I Attempted a Pokemon Platinum Nuzlocke", Jaiden defeats the Elite Four and Cynthia, but loses half of her team to Cynthia's Garchomp in the process, then realizes she's in an alternate reality created after Giratina split her in two in the Distortion World; in her original reality, she wiped out and got her entire team before she even made it to Cynthianote . This knowledge of both realities and another version of herself losing so horribly leaves Jaiden so overwhelmed with guilt that she finds the victory hollow and doesn't believe she deserves it.
  • Achievement Hunter's Let's Play Grand Theft Auto V episode "The Grand Heist": After making it to a Titan and only losing Ray to a Heroic Sacrifice, the rest of the Fake AH Crew is in smooth sailing, though under attack by choppers while in the Titan. Then the Titan stalls and starts to fall, its left wing clips a chopper and explodes, killing everyone so close to the finish line.
  • All seasons of the Life SMP provide this trope. It is a Foregone Conclusion that all but one person is going to die by the end of the Deadly Game; however, the context around it differs between seasons:
    • Grian's perspective really hammers in the ending of 3rd Life: after an entire series of him and Scar wanting to make it big together, their friendship collapses and the two fight to the death. Grian wins, but his victory is hollow — everyone else is dead, and his only true friend for the entire series is gone at his hands. Grian ends the series by taking his own life: he didn't die with riches, friends, and power — he died sad, poor, and alone, in the ruins of his and Scar's magnum opus.
    • In Last Life, there are no more Green Lives remaining after Martyn becomes a Red Life, meaning the Reds on the server have to duke it out between themselves. Scott, Cleo, Pearl and Ren form an alliance to go after Grian and Joel, and while they lose Cleo during the fight, in the end, Grian and Joel go down as well. Scott, Pearl and Ren decide that they don't want to betray one another, and each of the four remaining Reds picks a cardinal direction (Pearl picks north, Scott picks east, Martyn picks south and Ren picks west), they split off, count down, and each of them charges into the center of the map where they proceed to slaughter each other until only one remains. The winner of Last Life, Scott, only gets a brief moment to say goodbye to his axolotl Binkie before he too drops dead.
    • At the end of Double Life, the Red Lives hunt down the remaining Yellow Lives and two of the five remaining soulbound pairs at the time end up dying as a result of their own or their partners' stupidity. After Pearl kills the remaining two enemy soulbound pairs in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for her late Canine Companion (and Living Emotional Crutch), Tilly, she meets up with her own soulmate, Scott. She gets a few moments to relax with her remaining dogs… before Scott blows himself up to give her the win, instantly killing them both due the Can't Live Without You nature of soulbound pairs.
    • In Limited Life, after hours of battles and fluctuating alliances, the final battle comes down to the remaining members of T.I.E.S. (Impulse and Etho) and the Nosy Neighbours (Pearl) fighting against the Mean Gills (Scott and Martyn), who are still going strong at this point and have managed to decimate the competition. With Impulse left under 10 minutes left by the end, the three negotiate to have a three-way, fair play Duel to the Death on roughly even time... which ends with Martyn going full-on Combat Pragmatist before the duel even starts while under the Watchers' influence, killing both his Day 1 ally and their former enemy, then waits one last hour and a half for his life-timer to tick down.
    • In Secret Life, after the Heart Foundation and the Roomies alliances (and Martyn, the last of the Big Dogs) are taken down, the ensuing fight splits the Mounders and Gem and the Scotts' tentative alliance, with Scar, the last unaligned player, siding with the Mounders while with them at the time. The band puts up a respectable fight but are taken down by Pearl, who didn't even want to live this long or win again, and Scar, who has refused to kill Pearl, even at her own request. The final duel ends with Pearl being shot and falling off a ledge, and while he doesn't die at the end of his episode, Scar is left alone after spending almost the entire series alone and essentially friendless. It's even more of a downer in Martyn's "Eyes and Ears" continuity, as Scar's loneliness and suffering is eventually drawn out off-screen for all it's worth by the Watchers.
  • Season 1 of lonelygirl15 ends with the death of the main character. The Grand Finale is also very bleak.
  • "The Malthusian Paradox", a British ARG running in late 2012, ends with one protagonist under arrest, the other turning out to have been working for the enemy all along, the kidnapped professor dead, and the antidote to the genetic virus in the hands of some evil third party. And that's with the players being successful at every task along the way... Presumably, that was the good ending.
  • Marble Hornets has a few distressing endings.
    • Entry #25: The video consists of a recording of a news channel reporting a fire that has burned a building down. It doesn't really hit home until the end, where Jay tells us why the report is worth anything: "That was my apartment."
    • Entry #80: Tim is left all alone after Jay is shot by Alex and taken by the Operator, and he fails to rescue Jay as well as catch Hoody. At the very end, he grimly admits that he has no idea of what to do next.
  • At the end of Mario Brothers, everyone is dead, including Mario.
  • A fairly common ending in various alternate timelines of the Masako X - Dragon Ball What-If series:
    • What If Senzu Beans Didn't Exist?: Goku is killed fighting King Piccolo, allowing him to take over Earth...at least, until Raditz shows up, takes over himself, and hands the planet to Frieza, making this one a double whammy.
    • What If Goku Never Met Bulma?: Bulma dies trying to find the Dragon Balls, allowing Pilaf to succeed in finding them and taking over the world, causing a world war with the Red Ribbon Army...and then Raditz shows up, decimates both armies, either kills Goku or indoctrinates him into Frieza's army, and Earth becomes part of Frieza's empire. Oh, and he appropriates Capsule Corp. tech for his own use. In the remake it's only slightly better, because at least Bulma lives this time.
    • What If Vegeta Was The First Super Saiyan?: Vegeta turns Super Saiyan before Goku, rendering him more powerful, to a point Goku eventually Can't Catch Up. Thanks to Vegeta's manipulations, Whis refuses to train Goku, meaning Golden Frieza defeats Goku and blows up Earth. Then Beerus refuses to ask the Namekian Dragon to revive it since he had only been interested in Vegeta anyway. In the end, the only main character left alive is Vegeta, who becomes Universe 7's new God of Destruction.
    • What if Goku Never Learnt Instant Transmission?: Because Goku can't teleport the exploding Cell off planet, Cell succeeds in blowing up the Earth and everyone in it, leaving Cell (who can breathe in space) free to terrorize the universe. The best they can hope for is that Beerus puts him down when he awakens.
    • What if Beerus Never Woke Up?: Because Beerus never trains them, Goku and Vegeta are too weak to beat Golden Frieza, meaning he destroys them and Earth, resumes control of his empire, and continues his reign of terror.
    • What if Trunks Met Kid Bulma?: Because of all the changes Trunks ended up making to the timeline, the poor decision to let Raditz escape, and Trunks leaving at the worst possible time, the Z Warriors are unprepared for the Saiyans when Raditz brings them to Earth, Vegeta reveals the existence of the Dragon Balls to Frieza, Earth and the Saiyans are blown up when Vegeta tries to trick Frieza, which means there's no one that can stop Frieza from getting the Namekian Dragon Balls to wish for immortality. The only Hope Spot is the Supreme Kai of Time is allowing Trunks a second chance to make things right.
    • What if the Farmer DEFEATED Raditz?: A lucky ricochet distracts Raditz enough for the Farmer to knock Raditz out and give him amnesia. He lives a happy life as their adopted son Trigga, meaning the Saiyan and Frieza sagas never happen...which means the Z Warriors are completely unprepared for the Androids, meaning they all die like in Future Trunks's timeline and the Androids go on to terrorize Earth.
    • We Failed: Cell arrives from the future before Bulma can invent the time machine, meaning he easily absorbs the androids and begins to terrorize Earth, with no one able to stop him.
  • The mashed cartoon "Betty Help?" ends with Betty's goal of bringing water to a dying human being All for Nothing. The human is now a skeleton, and Betty stands by the body until her own battery runs out.
  • Matthew Santoro:
    • Subverted in "A New Planet & Antimatter!". Eugene accidentally breaks a jar of antimatter, which kills Matt, sending him to heaven. St. Peter implies that Matt will shortly go to Hell, because he was never nice to Hugo and was always telling his audience to keep it sexual. But then, Matt tells St. Peter that he was just about to get 1500 subscribers, so St. Peter lets him return to Earth.
    • "THE GREATEST EVAR!" ends with Hugo getting mad at Matt for locking him up, and attacking him. Then, he faces the audience, and says, "Hugo's show now."
    • "Anonymous" ends with Anonymous taking over Matt's video.
  • Migraine ends horribly for everyone except the Villain Protagonist. Ken Muntz ruins his kind neighbor's love life, then kills him afterwards. It's revealed that he's murdered at least seven other innocents and has been selling their flesh on the Black Market for money. And the final scene shows that Ken is going to keep killing innocent people until he's caught by the police or killed.
  • Mystery Skulls Animated:
    • "Ghost" doesn't really end well. Everyone who wasn't already dead gets out alive, but Lewis is left heartbroken, and nobody is able to reconcile his tragic death and put his soul to rest.
    • "Freaking Out" ends with a furious Lewis setting off to run down Arthur in a Big Badass Rig, Shiromori hot on Mystery's trail, Arthur in the middle of Sanity Slippage, and Lewis's true murderer on the move, while implying that the only character that may know it was the thing that actually killed him is a "dog", making it rather unlikely Arthur will be exonerated for the murder.
  • The first episode of season 2 of Nightmare Time ends with almost every main character dead. Linda is sacrificed to a dark god, Zoey is hung from the ceiling of the theater, Sam has been hit by a car, and Gerald dies in the impact.
  • The first season of the Nuzlocke Comics ends with Steven killing off Ruby's entire team.
  • Parody artist Jon Cozart, AKA Paint, turns the Happily Ever After endings of Disney films into downers in his "After Ever After" videos by setting them in our world and letting Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occur. The only exception for this is Mulan, who is happy after his transition, but feels bad when he realizes how awful the others have it.
  • Party Crashers:
  • Red vs. Blue: Recovery One ends with South shooting Washington in the back and leaving him for dead, letting the Meta steal his equipment in exchange for letting her go with Delta for the time being.
  • Played for Laughs when Rerez plays the video game adaptation of Reboot and manages to finally beat the game. They find the ending unsatisfying at best with its generous heaping of A Winner Is You, but are never-the-less glad it's over and high-five over their victory. Cut to GAME OVER — USER WINS and clips from the cartoon of rescue teams and wailing sirens responding to the sector that was nullified, killing everyone within, because they beat said game.
  • Roméo and Julieta: Being based on Romeo and Juliet helps, but even in that the protagonists' deaths at least managed to end the family feud. Here, they're dragged off in the middle of their wedding, hung from a tree, and busted open with a bat. It's pretty clear that the ones responsible won't be getting punished for it, and it's never made clear whether or not they know of the piñata's sentience, so they might not even know what they did.

  • Frequent in The Slender Man Mythos; particularly notable is Just Another Foolnote , where the final post strongly implies that Slender Man has succeeded in killing Josh.
  • Sodor II:
    • "The Vicarstown Gambit" ends with the confirmation that Bill's rebuild has halted, and that he is now slated to be scrapped. Flora is also barred from working beyond her branch line after she angrily crushes Scruffey to pieces.
    • "Last Chance" ends with Diesel being framed for crashing Duck, then exiled from the railway that previously saved him from scrap. Diesel 10 and Perry seem convinced that this means he will be scrapped soon, though they seem unaware that he has instead been purchased by Paul Maxwell. Furthermore, Thomas is threatened by Perry to keep quiet or else he will meet a horrible fate at his hands.
  • Smirvlak's Stone ends with both Nick and Stilyk dead, having been killed by Gnekvizz, who was in fact Evil All Along. On top of all that, it's revealed that he's the leader of a cult that desires to resurrect the demon Smirvlak so he can destroy the world.
  • Suburban Knights was originally a Bittersweet Ending, but the extended DVD edition turns it into this. Critic and Chester's quest for the Necronomicon is a complete failure, causing Critic to lapse even further into depression and self loathing, Malachite is still alive (albeit "trapped" in a coffee shop), Mechakara has stolen Malachite's Hand for himself, and Mati's spirit becomes bitter and vengeful over how horribly the Channel Awesome crew treated him and how no one appreciated him until after he died, which leads to the events of To Boldly Flee.
  • Considering the fact that the premise of Survival of the Fittest is "kill until only one survives", these kind of endings are pretty much inevitable. Of especial Tear Jerker material is the ending of V1, whereupon the winner visits the families of a number of their deceased classmates. There's also the fact, y'know, that the winner is the only survivor out of the group of 123 kids on the island.
  • Tails of Fame ends on a very dour note. Rast is murdered on Douglas' orders. Shortly afterwards, Douglas gives up the names of various criminal associates in exchange for immunity and gets off scot-free. Despite Seamus and Rast being dead, by the time the story's over, hundreds of innocents have died and it's implied a race war is going to start soon. And since Douglas is still alive, he's going to continue with his criminal activities and will only make things worse for the city of Stercullo.
  • The Storage Papers:
    • "The Cat Lady": Marjorie is left in a worse mental state thanks to her encounters with the titular Humanoid Abomination and moves out of her house out of fear, forcing her to donate the stray cats she was fostering to an animal shelter. The Cat Lady gorges herself on several more cats before they're all finally moved.
    • "Original Beast": Maxwell Tannard is transformed into an immortal werewolf, much to his own horror, and has become well aware he won't be able to Resist the Beast much longer. What he ultimately does is left ambiguous, but the least depressing possibility is that he's stranded himself on an island where he can't hurt anyone. A later episode reveals that he gave in and transferred the curse to a priest so that he could finally die.
    • "The Duct-Tape Man": Officer Diego Castrado's continued refusal to confront his trauma after killing spree shooter Peter "The Duct-Tape Man" Garrett results in him either slipping into homicidal madness or being subject to the same possession as Garrett was. Either way, Diego winds up becoming the new Duct-Tape Man and is shot dead when he attempts to shoot up a crowded mall.
    • Season 2 as a whole ends on one. Jeremy is left emotionally shattered by the climactic confrontation with the Grinner, Malcolm Foy is able to escape (albeit with a binding symbol carved into his chest), the Grinner isn't banished to Hell and is just lying in wait for some other poor schmuck to summon it, Benjamin Scanlon and Preston Nicklesworth are dead, and Ron is revealed to be an agent of Project Hydra.
  • Elrich from The Wanderer's Library is destroyed by its stars, which are then captured and contained by the SCP Foundation at an unknown point in the future. A Hand, An Eye, A Tooth ends with protagonist being killed by her husband for her disfigurement.
  • Welcome to Night Vale:
    • Episode 42: Cecil is unable to free Fey, who turns out to be a computer program and remains trapped at WZZZ reciting numbers for a Numbers Station in monotone against her will, possibly forever.
    • Episode 46: Tamika Flynn and her army attempt to rally Night Vale to join them in overthrowing Strexcorp, only to fail and be arrested. The episode ends with Cecil's barricaded-shut recording booth being infiltrated by Lauren and another StrexCorp employee (heavily implied to be Kevin, Cecil's Desert Bluffs counterpart), cutting off halfway through the sounds of a struggle.
    • Episode 64: Early in the episode, Cecil talks happily about the watercolor painting he made of Carlos. When the Glow Cloud rampages through Night Vale, part of Cecil's studio is damaged and the painting is destroyed. Cecil tries to play it off as no big deal, but he's obviously very upset, and he sounds legitimately depressed for the last few minutes of the episode.
  • WHAT COLOR ARE YOU?: To the game segment: the player is killed by a collapsing wall right before reaching the castle, and never achieves their destiny. The creator lampshades how depressing that was, commenting that "All that did was make me sadder."
    "You die. You never achieved your destiny or found your purpose. You died without a name in a world that will forget you. GAME OVER."
  • An unfortunately common occurrence in Matt McMuscles' series What Happened?!, which goes over games and movies that went through Development Hell and more often than not came out poorly. Some episodes can have somewhat positive endings, but most of them end in studio closures, financial failure, lawsuits, or any other awful repercussions that come from a critical or financial bomb.
  • The final chapter of Who Killed Markiplier?: Everyone is either dead, insane, corrupted, or left to an ambiguous fate, including you.

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