Call-Forward

None of these characters debut until over 150 chapters later in the original version.

"Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?"

— Obi-Wan Kenobi (to Anakin Skywalker, who was), Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones

It is common for long-running series to feature a Call-Back, in which characters make a quick Shout-Out to an event that happened earlier in the series. This provides a nice reference for long term fans to pick up on and helps establish a sense of continuity — after all, the characters should remember the things that they've done in the past.

The inversion of this is a Call-Forward, when a character in a Prequel or Flashback makes an offhand comment about something that viewers know will happen in the future, but the character themself is unaware of. Usually this takes the form of a derisive statement like "X? That's the Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard", where X is a major theme in the series. Done well, this can be a good inside joke in the same sense as a Call-Back or even provide an explanation for why something happens in the future, but done badly it can seem bizarre that the character would say something like that.

If the predictive statement appears in a work released before the event it predicts, this is Foreshadowing or Harsher in Hindsight. If the story is set in the past and the prediction is of a real-life event, then this often overlaps with It Will Never Catch On or This Is Going to Be Huge. Flashback to Catchphrase can be related, especially if it's preceded by "I'm only going say this once..." or "I Can't Believe I'm Saying This, but..."

Compare and contrast Tempting Fate. See also Externally Validated Prophecy. Hilarious in Flashback is a more Played for Laughs version.

As this trope is all about mentioning future chronological events in a fictional universe, beware of unmarked spoilers! Don't say we didn't warn you...

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Works with their own pages

• Better Call Saul
• The DCU
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• El Goonish Shive
• The Hobbit
• Marvel Universe
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
• Star Trek: Enterprise
• Star Wars
  • The Phantom Menace
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars
  • Rogue One
• Vaguely Recalling JoJo
• X-Men: First Class

Other examples:

Animation

• BoBoiBoy: A 10-year anniversary version of the first episode extends it by adding a prologue and an epilogue in the wake of new information only known later in the series, especially as it features characters from the indirect prequel series, Mechamato.
  • MechaBot takes a picture of BoBoiBoy as he boards the train to Rintis Island. Said image appears later in the series' chronology, in Mechamato's earlier 2019 debut in The Stinger of BoBoiBoy Movie 2, as Amato keeps pictures of his son with him on missions.
  • BoBoiBoy's last words to Amato before the train leaves is for the latter to send him a postcard. He finally gets that postcard from his parents in Season 3, which is even alluded to in the extended episode's Credits Montage where he holds it at one point.
  • The Credits Montage features many events that happen later in the series, such as BoBoiBoy's new friends, his fun times with them as well as Ochobot and Tok Aba, and the aforementioned postcard. The final shot features the main team in their BoBoiBoy Galaxy (the Soft Reboot sequel series) iterations.

Anime & Manga

• Asteroid in Love: Mari's flashback in Chapter 31 regarding the early days of the Earth Sciences Club's merger ends a little bit before Mira and Moe enter the clubroom in Chapter 1. Specifically, it ends by an explanation of why Ao is already there at that scene—she arrived at the clubroom minutes after school ended and immediately filed a membership application that she already filled out. Since Japanese schools usually give new students about a week to "experience" different Japanese School Clubs before committing to one, Ao's committing to their club that early surprised Mari, if not the other members Mikage and Mai.
• As the Attack on Titan manga was already in the Marley Arc by the time the second season of the anime released (in order to avoid Overtaking the Manga), said season contains a few nods to future events up to said arc that manga readers would recognize. The most obvious instance of this is that it depicts Ymir's backstory, which involves her being used as the figurehead of an Eldian cult, the cult's capture by Marleyan authorities, and her being thrown off a wall to become a Titan. Her exact backstory would not be revealed until many chapters later in the manga, and said flashback depicts several spoileriffic developments that serve to hint anime viewers of what is to come, namely that humanity is alive outside of the walls, the Fantastic Racism the Marleyans have towards the Eldians, and the true nature of Titans. The ED also depicts scenes from the folk tale of Ymir Fritz, which would not be shown in the manga until the following Uprising Arc, as well as several instances of Production Foreshadowing that even manga readers would not know the context of.
• Due to Berserk's In Medias Res beginning and frequent use of flashbacks, There are several scenes referencing events that were already shown to the audience but that haven't happened yet chronologically:
  • Shortly before and during the Eclipse, we see three Apostles from the first three volumes of Berserk - the nameless female demon that has sex with Guts (in disguise, of course), the Baron of Koka Castle, and The Count. Guts' fights with these monsters took place after the Golden Age Arc, chronologically, but were among the first shown to the audience.
  • The three-episode story Spring Flowers of Distant Days simultaneously manages to include Call-Back and Call-Forward. The Viscount's son that Guts is forced to fight is patterned after Bazuso, being a stout warrior in full armor with round eyeholes and a heavy weapon; the audience has already seen Guts' fight with Bazuso, but chronologically it has't happened yet. At the same time, Martino's resemblance to Gambino causes Guts to experience flashbacks to his cruel mentor, who was already portrayed in the early volumes and is dead by that point in the chronology.
• Takeru "TK" Takaishi becomes a novelist at the end of Digimon Adventure 02, and has written a book series about the adventures of the Digidestinted. In Digimon Adventure tri. TK maintains a blog, and is in regular contact with his Digidestined colleagues who live all over the world.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Dragon Ball SD, being a full colour remake/parody of the Dragon Ball manga, has a number of call forwards to later events in the series (which is pictured at the top of this trope page). There was a similar scene in the original, but the specific future villains weren't in it.
  • In Dragon Ball Super, while hunting down Android 17 for the Tournament of Power, Dende tells Goku he's also sensed an amazing power from a small village by a little kid unaware of his power. Though Dende specifically states that he's the reincarnation of Majin Buu, meaning the kid is Uub, Goku can't grab him because he's still a kid — he'll meet him in the future, long after the fights, as we see in the Distant Finale of Dragon Ball Z.
• Genbu Warriors Hikitsu and Tomite of Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden made offhand comments indicating how it's impossible to meet The Suzaku Warriors of Fushigi Yuugi since it's most likely they're a couple of hundred years apart.
• One chapter of GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class involves five past-era lookalikes of the present main cast.
  • Nogi, the Noda lookalike, is designing school uniforms of the future. Despite Yayoi's inability to picture it, one is pretty much exactly what present-day Ayanoi students wear.
  • There's a new teacher, Koshino-sensei. She was introduced in volume 3 as the fashion teacher with a not-wholly-undeserved reputation for being harsh.
  • There are also rumors about Geijutsuka C Class, the fashion department, being dissolved, or possibly just being absorbed into the painting class. By the present day, the latter has happened.
  • Also:
    Yayoi, the Kisaragi lookalike: [to Sanae-chan, the mannequin] One day, even if this class is gone... you will stay here forever, right?
• GTO: The Early Years was published before its sequel Great Teacher Onizuka,^note though it's published overseas as GTO: The Early Years but the 2020 live-action series of SJG has several call-forwards:
  • There's a line in the first episode where Mariko tells Eikichi and Ryuji that Ayumi is a "Great Teacher".
  • The third episode begins with Eikichi dreaming about being a teacher, whose class is mocking him for still being a virgin. When he wakes up, his friends all laugh at the thought of him as a teacher.
  • At the end of the fifth episode, Kaoru says he's better than any teacher she's known, and he calls after her, "Just wait... I'll become a damn great teacher!"
  • In the last episode, Saejima says Matsuoka is pretty cool for a cop, and announces his intention to become one. Guess what Saejima does for a living in GTO?
• Due to Anachronic Order, the anime adaptation of The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya has this. Even if watched in chronological order, there are still a few of these, mostly because the light novels the series was adapting were ahead of the anime, so the producers knew exactly what was coming.
• The David Production anime of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which came out while Part 8 was being written, has references to later storylines that didn't exist when the manga was being written.
  • The opening for Battle Tendency shows thorny vines over a silhouette of Joseph, referencing his Stand Hermit Purple, which he won't get for another 50 years in-universe.
  • The Joestar family birthmark, which became a plot point in Stardust Crusaders, is visible on Jonathan and Joseph in Parts 1 and 2 respectively.
  • In the Part 3 anime, DIO is shown to be in possession of the Bow and Arrow, which were introduced in Diamond is Unbreakable.
  • In Golden Wind, Polnareff has a photograph of the group from Part 3, which was never mentioned before; the anime version of Part 3 shows them actually taking the photo.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War spin-off We Want to Talk About Kaguya has this happen several times, given that most of its humor relies on the Dramatic Irony of the reader known what happens later on in the main series.
  • When Karen catches a sight of Kaguya and Shirogane holding hands during the fireworks festival in chapter 40, she passes out and starts quoting a Bible verse. This is identical to her reaction to seeing their first kiss in chapter 137 of the main series.
  • Chapter 60 shows that Karen and Erika wrote an article on Today Will be Sweet, the shojo manga that the student council end up getting obsessed with in chapters 73-74 of the main series.
  • Karen talks about the possibility of Ishgami falling in love in chapter 72. This was set shortly before he develops a crush on Tsubame during the Sports Festival.
• Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days: One of the prizes for collecting enough "Winner" sticks is an Easter Island Head tissue dispenser. In the Kingdom Hearts II manga, Roxas was broke because he spent his money on the same item.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Movie 1st The Comics, a later retelling of the first season, added a scene where Fate talks about barrier-piercing strategies with Linith. One of the tactics brought up by Fate was the idea of creating a massive blade of concentrated magic that she could use to slice through her opponent's barrier, something Linith says wasn't a good idea for the still small Fate, but would be a great technique for Fate in the future when she's grown enough to wield it effectively. This was a reference to an attack Fate acquired at the end of the second season, but didn't master enough to use frequently until the third season when she was already an adult.
  • In the Reflection manga, Hayate gives an internal monologue about how Nanoha pushing herself to insane lengths to help others can be dangerous. In the main timeline, Nanoha would end up getting hospitalized for a year about six months after the movie takes place when all her constant training causes a Heroic RRoD during what would have been a routine mission, and then lose 8% of her total magic power as an adult during her Roaring Rampage of Rescue when Vivio is kidnapped.
  • The same chapter also discusses the miniaturization of AMF generators, something that would eventually lead to the creation of Gadget Drones in StrikerS.
  • The following chapter has an appearance of Nanoha's post-StrikerS character design when Momoko and Lindy discuss her future. The same panel has Lindy mentioning that she has the potential to be a first class Ace, a clear reference to her her becoming the Ace of Aces.
  • Chapter 1 has a Ship Tease moment when Amy offers Chrono a boxed lunch she made, referencing their eventual marriage.
• The flashback arc of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, which covers Casval and Artesia Deikun's (AKA, Char Aznable and Sayla Mass) childhood and the leadup to the One Year War, has several incidents that reference events told earlier in the main story. They become Calls Forward to the original Mobile Suit Gundam series in the OVA, which is presented as a straight prequel:
  • Ramba Ral's cockpit is torn open in a mock battle with one of the future Black Tri-Stars during testing of an early prototype mobile suit. A similar incident occurs in his final fight in the Gouf against Amuro. Ramba Ral even declares the cockpit design a deathtrap, though he survives both times.
  • In the OVA, Casval arranges the death of Lino Fernandez very similarly to how he betrays Garma years later: he sent them both into ambushes by giving them incomplete information in battle. Casval sending his friend the original Char Aznabel to his death at Kycilia's hands also echos Garma's disposability.
  • A more distant example also comes from the OVA, where a woman and her child are crushed by a mobile suit-sized shell casing. The same thing happens in Mobile Suit Gundam F91 and Mobile Suit Victory Gundam.
• Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, veritable redtube of Continuity Porn that it is, has a few nods to future Gundam shows, such as Mobile Suit Gundam F91 (the transforming tank MS Loto being a prototype of the Guntank R-44, Banagher having a part time job at a company owned by the Ronah family), Hathaway's Flash (the Kshatriya R's Funnel Missiles being a forerunner of a weapon that appears in the novel, and the Gustav Karl mobile suit makes a brief appearance) and even the obscure novel and radio play Gaia Gear which was assumed to be non-canon (both feature a Federation counter-terrorist group called the Manhunters).
• S1E07 of the My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! anime starts with a flashback to when Atsuko and "the monkey girl"^note The girl who would reincarnate into Catarina. first met, which happened because she landed butt-first onto Atsuko, causing her to worry that she accidentally killed somebody with her butt, exactly like what would happen "later" between Catarina and Keith.
• Queen Millennia: Yayoi mentions she's taking an exam to become a Space Stewardess. In the earlier work Galaxy Express 999, she gave that role to her daughter Maetel.
• In the Saint Beast OVAs, young Kira and Maya are searching around the treasury and find the twins of Saint Beast weapons that will eventually be used to brainwash Goh, Shin, Rey, and Gai to betray their friends.
• In Soul Eater Not!, the prequel to Soul Eater, Kim is called the "witch of the girls' dormitory" because she is mean to the other students in the girls' dormitory. It was revealed around chapter 50 of Soul Eater proper that Kim is actually a witch.
  • The "old lady" that acts as the DWMA mission receptions makes an appearance in Not!, where she explains she was a student in the EAT class, and even though she's retired she'll be quick to jump to the front lines if the students ever need her. In the main manga she had already done so, joining the fight in the last arc of the series, and had already been killed.
• Spy X Family: The flashback chapter Mission 62 has a child Twilight doing the exact same "turn around and you're dead" *Click* Hello that his older self does in Mission 1. Only this time, it's with a toy gun.
• In Sword Art Online Progressive (a retelling of the Aincrad arc) Kirito, after realizing that one belligerent member of the ALS named Joe was the same one who accused Nezha of causing someone's death, curses his inability to remember faces and names, and realizes that someday, that will put him in danger. In the Phantom Bullet arc, which takes place after the Aincrad arc, a plot point is Kirito's inability to recognize which member of Laughing Coffin (a guild Kirito helped dismantle back in Aincrad) is actually Death Gun.
  • Progressive also has one to Accel World. Kirito and Asuna briefly wonder if the NerveGear has the ability to make time pass much more quickly than in the real world, (meaning they haven't been trapped in the game for that long), but they conclude that it isn't possible with this level of technology. In Accel World, which is implied to take place in the future of the same universe as SAO, Brain Burst does just that- a single second in the real world translates to 1,000 seconds in Brain Burst.
• Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song: In the opening scene set in 2161, almost all the clothing seen consists of white, gray, and black clothing decorated with lime green luminescent lines. When Matsumoto jumps back into the past, the fashion borders on No New Fashions in the Future. In Episode 7, which is set around 2121 after a forty-year Time Skip from Episode 6, various characters are seen wearing clothing decorated with lime green luminescent lines reminiscent of those seen in 2161.
• The first chapter of Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium World is set before the original Yu-Gi-Oh. Sugoroku Muto (Yugi's grandpa) is a skilled gamer that says that if he ever loses a game, he'll trade his suit and fedora for a pair of overalls and a bandanna, and will open a game store. Apparently he lost.

Audio Plays

• Big Finish Doctor Who:
  • In the Destiny of the Doctor audio drama "Trouble in Paradise", the Sixth Doctor, with considerable and dangerous mental effort, manages to unlock the TARDIS by channeling psychic energy through the goat that ate the TARDIS key. He speculates that, with practice, he might be able to open the TARDIS doors just by thinking about it.
  • In "Trial of the Valeyard", the Valeyard taunts the Sixth Doctor by giving hints about how his future incarnation will fare; telling him that the Seventh Doctor is filled with "plots and schemes", all to win a game "that was never his to win", and that the Eighth Doctor will "never be able to shake the shadow of death".
  • In "Mistfall", the Doctor remarks that Turlough is a strong swimmer, which calls forward to when Turlough will save Peri from drowning in "Planet of Fire".

Comic Books

• In Batman Beyond Unlimited #3, Amanda Waller tells teenaged Terry McGinnis how she knows the other members of the JLU, adding that how she knows Terry himself is a long story best discussed over a cup of tea.
• At the end of the Doctor Who Magazine strip "Monstrous Beauty" (2020), in which the Ninth Doctor and Rose fight the Vampire Alliance, Rose comments that she still can't quite believe vampires are real, and adds "What's next? Werewolves?"
• In the Doctor Who (Titan) Third Doctor miniseries Heralds of Destruction, set shortly after "The Three Doctors":
  • Tom Osgood from "The Daemons" is shown to have asthma and use a Nerdy Inhaler, just like his presumed relative Petronella.
  • Jo Grant turns out to have originally coined the phrase "timey wimey". Third finds it ridiculous, just as the War Doctor will.
  • The Master attempts to turn Mike Yates, recognising that the captain is tired of fighting for the status quo and might easily fall in with a convincing villain. Later, when he experiences the villain's time machine, Yates comments that it would be nice to spend time in a "golden age".
  • When the Master gains control of the MacGuffin, and intends to use it to take over the universe, he begins composing his ultimatum, getting as far as "Peoples of the universe, please attend..."
• In Mega-City Max, a YA Judge Dredd spin-off:
  • DeMarco PI: Snake Oil is set shortly after DeMarco was expelled from the Justice Academy^note Which probably makes this an Alternate Continuity, since in canon she quit while a full Judge., and features her talking to her Academy friends, newly appointed Judges Barbara Hershey and Cassandra Anderson. When Hershey complains about her superior, Cass says Barbara's rising so fast that one day she'll be the one giving him orders, referencing her eventual appointment to Chief Judge. Barbara replies that Cass could also do well if she took things more seriously, which could be a reference to how Anderson: Psi-Division portrayed her as considerably less light-hearted than her original appearances in the Dredd strip.
  • Devlin Waugh: Wedding Hells ends with the young Devlin, having exorcised his first demon, claiming that the Pope now owes him a favour, forshadowing his eventual role as Vatican Cit's go-to Occult Detective.
• My Little Pony: Fiendship Is Magic #1:
  • Sombra briefly takes the cloudy form that he appears in after his 1000 year imprisonment, which is apparently his true form.
  • The red crystal tells Sombra that the Crystal Heart will destroy him if he doesn't take it out of the equation first.
• The Noob comic is a Broad Strokes adaptation written by the creator of the webseries of the same name. By the time something gets Foreshadowing in the comic, it usually already happened in the webseries and novels, whose timeline is progressing faster.
• The penultimate story arc of The Punisher MAX dealt with Frank's difficulty adjusting to civilian life, including a fellow soldier saying he couldn't imagine Castle taking his kids on a family picnic. The origin story of how Castle became the Punisher is specifically that he lost his family to a shooting when they were at a picnic together.
• Ultimate Marvel: In Ultimate Origins, set some years in the past, Bruce Banner experiments on himself, turns into the Hulk, and people die as a result. He reverts back to human, tries to justify his actions, and gets a well deserved kick in the face for it. Yes, like the one from the first arc of The Ultimates.
• Star Trek Expanded Universe:
  • The epilogue of Star Trek: Debt of Honor has Jim Kirk and Gillian Taylor share a toast with Chateau Picard champagne.
• Star Trek: Early Voyages:
  • In "Flesh of My Flesh", Captain Pike is advised by Captain Robert April, his predecessor as the commander of the Enterprise, to fight tooth and claw when the time comes and Starfleet tries to promote him. This is highly similar to the conversation between two future Enterprise captains, James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard, about making a difference in Star Trek: Generations. April later tells Captain Pike to treat the Enterprise right and she'll always bring him home. Admiral McCoy said the same thing to Data about the Enterprise-D in the Star Trek: The Next Generation pilot "Encounter at Farpoint".
  • The title of "Our Dearest Blood" refers to the opening scene of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. When Cadet Foster asks Admiral Kirk whether there is going to be a reception to mark the Enterprise's return to Earth in the aftermath of the battle with Khan and Spock's death in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Kirk replies, "A hero's welcome, son? Is that what you'd like?...Well, God knows, there should be. This time we paid for the party with our dearest blood." There is another reference to this scene when Number One remarks that the Enterprise feels like a house with all the children gone when most of the crew are on the surface of Rigel VII for shore leave. Kirk made the same observation about the ship after the majority of its trainee crew were reassigned.
  • In "Cloak and Dagger, Part Two", when Captain Pike asks Spock for his opinion on the Lost Colony of pre-Logic Reformation Vulcans on Darien 224, Spock replies, "Captain, my perspective on this is no different than yours would be if we discovered a colony of Khan's eugenics warriors or Hitler's Nazis."
  • In "Immortal Wounds", Spock states that he has considered the undertaking the ritual of Kolinhar, the purging of all emotion. He would later do so in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
  • The Alternate Timeline story arc "Futures" features multiple references to canon Star Trek productions, most prominently the TOS films:
    • In "Futures, Part One", José Tyler receives a vision of his future from an Algolian keepsake. He sees himself as the captain of a Starfleet ship wearing the uniform style introduced in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. His ship's helmsman is a Vulcan male who appears to be Tuvok. The Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback" established that Tuvok was a member of Starfleet during the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
    • In "Future Tense, Part Two", Kirk tells Mia Colt that he was hoping to be assigned to the U.S.S. Farragut under Captain Garrovick after graduating from Starfleet Academy but he was instead assigned to the Enterprise as Captain Pike's yeoman following her disappearance. Captain Kirk's service aboard the Farragut in the normal timeline was established in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Obsession".
    • Also in "Future Tense, Part Two", Kirk is the captain of the commercial freighter Bounty. In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, this was the name that Dr. McCoy gave the Klingon bird-of-prey that the former Enterprise crew commandeered in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
    • Again in "Future Tense, Part Two", the Phoenix can be seen on display in the San Francisco Smithsonian Museum of Air, Sea and Space, as Captain Picard said it was in Star Trek: First Contact.
    • The main antagonist of the story arc is General Chang, who was also the main antagonist of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
    • In "Futures, Part Three", Tyler comments that the Klingons will be all over the Enterprise-A like Denevan parasites, indicating that the Enterprise crew dealt with the same threat (as seen in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Operation: Annihilate!") in this timeline.
    • Also in "Futures, Part Three", Scotty, the chief engineer of the Bounty, admires the engine room of the Enterprise-A. He notes that he has worked on tramp steamers, ram-jet scoops and full-burn fleeters but has always dreamed of working on a starship's engines. He tells Moves-With-Burning-Grace to cherish the experience. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics", Scotty told Captain Picard that he was at his happiest when he was working on the Enterprise's engines and gave Geordi the same advice as he gave Moves-With-Burning-Grace.
    • In "Futures, Part Three" and "Now and Then, Part Four", as in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the Excelsior under the command of a former Enterprise crewmember (in this case, Number One) is ordered to track down the renegade Enterprise-A but lets it go on its way when it succeeds in locating it.
    • In "Now and Then, Part Four", Pike and Kirk observe that sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. With respect to their mission to Algol II, Kirk later asks Pike, "I trust the situation's grim and the odds are against us." Pike replies, "You could say that." Almost the exact same exchange took place between Kirk and Picard regarding fighting Dr. Tolian Soran on Veridian III in Star Trek: Generations.
    • When Mia Colt jumps into the Well of Tomorrows on Algol II in "Now and Then, Part Four", the Spock of the mirror universe, the Enterprise-D and its senior staff, Deep Space 9, the Borg and a Daedalus-class starship are seen.
    • In the final scene of "Now and Then, Part Four", Captain Pike sees a vision of himself severely scarred and disabled by delta radiation in an Algolian keepsake.
  • In "Nemesis", Commander Kaaj refers to himself as the son of Torg. In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Torg was the name of Commander Kruge's first officer, suggesting that he is a relative of Kaaj.
• Star Trek: Untold Voyages:
  • In "Renewal", Admiral Kirk considers retiring to his family farm in Iowa. Star Trek: Generations revealed that Kirk eventually did so but returned to Starfleet prior to the events of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Generations also featured a version of the farm created by the Nexus from Kirk's memories.
  • In "Worlds Collide", Saavik intends to follow Spock's example and join Starfleet when she is of age. By the time of her first appearance in The Wrath of Khan, Saavik is a cadet aboard the Enterprise.
  • Also in "Worlds Collide", after Kirk notes that he can almost hear Spock's voice in his absence, Dr. McCoy remarks that he can't think of anything worse than having Spock's voice in his head. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock revealed that Spock transferred his katra to McCoy before his Heroic Sacrifice in The Wrath of Khan.
  • In "Silent Cries", Sulu assumes command of the Enterprise in the absence of Admiral Kirk and Spock on a mission to Duran 12. Although the Enterprise is attacked by Orion pirates, he nevertheless relishes the experience and looks forward to having another opportunity for command. He would eventually become captain of the U.S.S. Excelsior in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
  • "Odyssey's End" sets the stage for The Wrath of Khan: Chekov is reassigned to the U.S.S. Reliant as its first officer, Admiral Kirk accepts a teaching position at Starfleet Academy, the Enterprise becomes a training vessel with Spock as its captain and Kirk hopes to form a relationship with his son David Marcus. Furthermore, McCoy is worried that Kirk will once again find serving in the admiralty unsatisfying. Although Kirk dismisses his friend's concerns, they would eventually be proven correct.
• The Transformers Secrets and Lies is a prequel to the main comic that has filling in the gaps as its main premise, so this is a given.
  • Issue 0 has Fastlane and Cloudraker crash on Earth and becoming the Man of Iron and companion from the story of the same name. Punch follows behind and sabotages their ship, it's revealed, on behalf of Optimus Prime trying to prevent the Decepticons from returning to Cybertron. Handily explaining a way an Out-of-Character Moment from the original story where Prime orders them killed rather than adding them to the ranks.
  • Issue 1 introduces Skyfire, a seeming Identical Stranger Decepticon to the Jetfire Shockwave later constructs on Earth (even down to being named for his cartoon counterpart), but then he perishes, with Shockwave recovering his brain with the intent to revive him one day, hinting that Jetfire was the result.
  • On being shown around Darkmount in issue 2, Straxus fantasises about installing a smelting pool, his preferred method of execution when he takes control of the fortress.
  • Fortress Maximus is shown to be antsy about fighting the war, setting up his decision to abandon it and leave for new pastures in the Headmasters miniseries.
  • Thrust, Dirge and Ramjet are offered the position they were introduced in as Straxus's lieutenants if they vow to remain silent about the events of the miniseries.
  • Grimlock damages the Ark's computer Auntie such that she can't distinguish between friend and foe, leading to her restoring the Decepticons alongside the Autobots 4 million years later.

Fan Works

• In Back to the Future Prequel, young Marty mentions an interest in time travel.
• In Better Angels, a What If? fic about Shane Walsh killing Rick Grimes, Shane notes that a person needs to be bitten to turn into a Walker. Due to Rick's demise, the secret that Dr. Jenner told Rick is never revealed, so Shane nor anyone else in the Atlanta group is initially aware, and Shane shoots Rick's head before he can reanimate as Shane did in canon.
• The Bolt Chronicles:
  • In the pre-canon story "The Clouds," part of the initial interaction between homeless bum Soapy and his future wife duplicates what happens when Bolt and Mittens first meet in canon. When Soapy crudely propositions her and says "Yeah, I’m really scared now" after the woman takes offense, she grabs him by the coat lapels and slams him hard back into the side of the diner, shouting "You should be!" She then drags him off to the police station by his scarf, though they later find common ground while conversing at the station house — and by the story's conclusion they have moved in together with a summer wedding upcoming. It's also Foreshadowing, given that Bolt and Mittens become lovers in the fic series.
  • Rhino's canon assertion that he "isn't all hamster. I'm one-sixteenth wolf with, you know, a little wolverine in there somewhere" is referenced in "The Seven" (a pre-canon fic), where Bolt's father Blaze is described as claiming he has a background that is far more exotic than just mundanely canine.
    The eccentric little mongrel named Blaze was unique — truly unlike any dog that had ever existed, or would most likely ever exist again. An unusual combination consisting primarily of American white shepherd with healthy dollops of Berger Blanc Suisse and Hinks bull terrier mixed in, he would also claim — depending on the day — to be part husky, part wolf, part wolverine, or a descendent of Lassie, Benji, Toto, Balto, or Buck from "The Call of the Wild."
  • In the film, Rhino mentions that in the Bolt TV show, one of Dr. Calico's past plots involved infiltrating the Olympics with gymnastic cyborgs. The pre-canon fic "The Pilot" incorporates this idea into the show's pilot episode, with Dr. Calico creating said cyborgs for this purpose, the better to facilitate taking over the world. Bolt blasts them away with laser Eye Beams in a blaze of pyrotechnics.
    Dr. Calico had somehow discovered the brilliant scientist's ability to transform the family pooch into an invincible fighting machine and had decided to shanghai him to create a platoon of gymnastic cyborgs, the better to infiltrate the Olympics and achieve a stepping stone to world dominance.
• Cadance of Cloudsdale, being set a few decades before the main series, has quite a few. For example, Cadance mentions that Twilight Sparkle is really dedicated to learning magic, and might make a good student of Celestia's. That's exactly what happens in the series.
• Code Prime:
  • Arcee questions if Euphemia isn't the kind of person to start a massacre, especially after their scuffle with Clovis. Not only does Arcee become really wrong when considering canon, but the SAZ Massacre also happens in the fic itself, doubling as Foreshadowing.
  • This exchange between Shockwave and Megatron right after the newly-arrived scientist learns of Lelouch's identity as Zero.
  Shockwave: Lord Megatron, Soundwave has informed me of all that has transpired here on this planet: such as our control over the Britannian Empire, including Zero and the Autobots, as well as Zero's true identity.
  Megatron: I see.
  Shockwave: And I must ask; what is the purpose of keeping his identity a secret? Surely, as the Black Knights are mostly consisting of Elevens, they would logically abandon their leader as he is the prince of the same Empire they despise so much.
• In the rewritten version of Calvin and Hobbes: The Movie, Calvin mentions trying to stuff a portal to another dimension ^note long story short, it justifies Bag of Holding into a cube. He does just that in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series.
• In Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness, the loud rock music blaring from Megas during its fights is hinted to have been Mystia's inspiration for forming Choujuu Gigaku years later.
• In Fragmentation, Captain-General Janos Marik confronts a minor ComStar functionary about several 'rumors' that have been given to him about the organization (All of them actually describing actual ComStar plots in the present or past). One of them he mentions was human experimentation to produce Super Soldiers, which in the canon future would eventually become the Word of Blake's Manei Domini.
• "Forever Doctors"- a crossover where the Eighth Doctor (Doctor Who) meets Doctor Henry Morgan (Forever)- features a few;
  • When the Doctor first meets a Dalek, he learns that the Daleks are fighting 'the War', the Doctor unaware that this is a reference to the Time War with his own people.
  • When trying to perform a scan of New York, the Doctor notes that there is a temporal disturbance caused by multiple paradoxes in the city (The Angels Take Manhattan).
• In Forever And A Mile, Octavia is forced to sleep in her old office chair following her being tube-blocked by O'Brian and prohibited from returning home after work. As she wakes up from a night of bad sleep in the chair, she thinks to herself how it would be nice if she had a more comfier chair to sleep in, especially if it has a cupholder. Although her chair creaks in response and she abandons the thought, the episode "Best Seats in the House" shows that she does indeed get a more comfier chair — two of them, in fact, and on nothing more than a stroke of luck thanks to the bickering of Olive, Otto, Oren and Olaf.
• Guardian references many moments in Final Fantasy X, and a few from its sequel:
  • One of the orphans seen on Lulu's home island is clearly meant to be Paine.
  • Lulu speaks of "going home" after Ginnem's pilgrimage and goes uncorrected, much as happens with Tidus later.
  • Yuna's first performance of the Sending dance references the game FMV.
• Hours 'Verse:
  • When Yu and Naoto visit the Velvet Room and learn about the Sea of Souls, Naoto speculates that there could be other areas in the Collective Unconscious formed by the perceptions of humanity. Later, on one of her trips to the Sea of Souls, Elizabeth comes across Mikuratana-no-Kami, the unfinished Midnight Stage, and Mementos in an early stage.
  • Izanami says that Mankind's wish for the easy way is just part of a bigger problem – specifically, their refusal to think and their desire to have someone else decide everything for them.
  • At one point Yu thinks that someone with Sho's personality and Minato's power would be terrifying.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: Trip's flashback of his time in the Infinity Train has him tell Grace and Simon that karma will catch up to them. As the fanfic takes place right when Book 3 is starting, he's right.
• Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily is the prequel to Blossoming Trail and hints to some of the events to that story.
  • Ash being an observer to Gladion and Lillie's argument will foreshadow Goh and Chloe and how Ash would have been unaware of how many problems Chloe had.
  • The prologue starts with a Plot Parallel with a dark fantasy story where the protagonist suffers a Fate Worse than Death, just like how Chloe pens a story about an expy of Goh and a Wish-Granter.
• Naru-Hina Chronicles:
  • Chapter 45 is a Whole Episode Flashback taking place during the canonical Time Skip that Naruto spent training with Jiraiya. At the end of that chapter, Jiraiya asked Naruto about the book the latter was writing, which was first shown in Chapter 24.
  • Chapter 66 has a flashback set during the canonical time skip. In that flashback, Hinata had her Part 1 design, but her hair was slightly longer. She mentioned that she was thinking about growing her hair down to her waist, which is of course how long her hair became after said time skip.
  • The flashback from Chapter 134 shows Tsunade kissing Naruto on his forehead when he was a baby. This brings to mind when she kissed him on his forehead over a decade later during the Search for Tsunade arc.
• Chapter 5 of Nothing is Impossible, set before the events of Captain America: Civil War, sees Vision asking Wanda why Tony's files have Thor listed as "Point Break". Years later, Thor is dismayed to discover that the only passcode a Quinjet's onboard computer will accept from him is this nickname.
• The WWE story, One More Time, takes place in 2005. During the story, Molly Holly asks Eddie Guerrero what his family will do if anything happens to him, sarcastically presenting the idea of Eddie's wife, Vickie, getting a job with WWE. The story also has Molly talking about "this girl named Beth" that she helped get placed in OVW.
• Pandora AU:
  • When Pandora explains the prophecy to a young Sonic, it's accompanied by a panel of Super Sonic fighting an unseen force in space.
  • According to Pandora, the prophecy makes Sonic the champion of Chaos, destined to "wield the power of gods, fight the forces of evil, and bring balance to the world," which is a pretty accurate description of Sonic's exploits in the years that follow.

• The Prodigal Son Returns, a Red Dead Redemption fanfic, makes a reference to when John Marston gets the quote "People don't forget. Nothing gets forgiven." After John returns to the gang after leaving them (and Abigail and Jack) for a whole year, almost everyone welcomes him back, and he's got gifts for them. But Arthur holds a grudge against John for abandoning the gang, so when John gives him a journal as a gift, Arthur flings it down to the ground, growling, "People don't forget, John. Nothing gets forgiven."
• Queen of All Oni: In one flashback, when Hiruzen posthumously spoke to Tarakudo through his own severed head, Tarakudo found the concept of a floating head fascinating. This implies it inspired his own eventual transformation into a floating head.
• Remembrance of the Fallen: Commander Haelivthras "Thrass" th'Shvrashli from The Universe Doesn't Cheat appears in the internal narrative, in his capacity as Eleya's major advisor.
• The Rod Squad is an Alternate Universe Fic written in the late '90s that relocates Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers into The '70s, so this was of course tempting.
  • While comforting Tammy, Foxy Glove predicts cable TV. She claims that it's going to be "all FREE".
  • She also hints at cell phones way ahead of their time.
    Foxy Glove: Besides, the call was probably made from a pay phone. It's not like someone can carry one of those things in his POCKET!
• Shakedown Shenanigans: T'Var mentions to Eleya that she's scheduled to take the promotion exam next month and that she's finished some command-level courses. This refers back to her leaving the ship in Bait and Switch to take her first command.
• Sight: When Shinji tells Ichigo that a Visored's Zanpakutou becomes their inner Hollow, Ichigo is horrified at the idea of having to lock Zangetsu away. He is thankful that Zangetsu and Hakuran seem to be seperate aspects of himself. In ''Bleach, it was revealed that "Zangetsu" was the embodiment of Ichigo's Quincy powers and his Inner Hollow is the true Zangetsu.
• The ending of Roger's focus chapter in Haunting of Villa Layla has Ego the Living Planet comment that something about human genetics clearly had a reaction with his own, and he'd have to visit the planet again. Of course, next time he does so is when he conceives Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord.
  • In Agent Carter: Phantom Pain, a later story in the same series, Peggy calls Sousa her "good eye" - something Nick Fury would later use to refer to Philip Coulson.
• The Adventures on the Friendship Express Spin-Off story of Sonic Generations: Friendship is Timeless references Sonic games released after Sonic Generations, such as Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom. In addition, keeping in mind that the main story takes place midway through Season 3 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (so Twilight Sparkle is not an alicorn princess yet), Chapter 7 includes a call-forward to the events of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls.
• In "Wayne Manor", part of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts series, eight-year-old Bruce Wayne and Alfred the butler have a conversation in which Bruce says that he's learned from books that dinner parties often have murders and he's trying to figure out which of the guests at his parents' dinner party would be the murderer. After he dismisses one guest as "too happy":
  "Happy people can't be murderers?"
  "Only if they're fake happy." Bruce sounded very sure of himself. "Like clowns."
• The Stalking Zuko Series: a respected Ba Sing Se therapist named Dr. Wang is noted to have a very nice beard that Smellerbee imitates when trying to help Jet talk about his problems. Guess where Sokka got his inspiration for the Wang Fire beard?
• As a Fan Sequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek Continues has quite a few references and nods to quite a few of the works set later in the series' timeline, both of the overt and the more subtle variety:
  • One of the series' Original Characters in the regular cast is Dr. Elise McKennah, who is has the temporary position of "ship counselor" as part of an experiment by Starfleet. The posting of ship counselor has become a permanent position as of the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  • "Pilgrim of Eternity" opens with Scotty demonstrating a prototype version of the "holodeck project" that him and a team of Starfleet's other top engineers are developing to Kirk. Kirk is rather impressed by how realistic the whole thing feels, and Scotty believes that the project is going to turn out really great... once they manage to iron out the bugs in the program, of course.
  • The intro to "Lolani" shows Kirk squinting at a book he is trying to read in his quarters, a reference to his need for reading glasses in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
  • In "To Boldly Go, Part 1", Lana explains to Kirk that Starfleet has been doing experiments with weaponizing Espers, such as herself. When Kirk responds with skepticism to her claim, telling her that he is pretty sure that the Federation is not in the business of weaponizing its own citizens, she says that if that is what he believes, he had better study "Article 14, Section 31".
  • At the end of "To Boldly Go, Part 2", Spock has a discussion with Kirk with about emotions, as he blames himself for death of Dr. McKennah, believing that the whole unfortunate thing happened because he was thinking emotionally and not logically, and that he needs to do something about it. This, of course, ties into Spock's subplot from the Motion Picture, where he was attempting to undergo a ritual to purge all emotion from himself.
• Throw Away Your Mask:
  • Akechi recounts a ghost story to Junpei seemingly about the Midnight Channel, having heard it from Akira.
  • Ken calls the new TV replacing the one Akechi broke so big he could fall into it.
  • When Junpei says that he should've shoved Shido harder, Yukari tells him off because Shido could've pressed charges.
• The Truth Behind The Lie: One of the Empress' lines is taken from the ending of the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon a Time", hinting at who she will ultimately become.
• Since Turnabout Storm takes place at a set point in the timeline of Ace Attorney, it was bound to bring up moments from later moments in the series, such as Phoenix's future daughter ("Me with children? That'll be the day."), and his get-up in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney ("What does she think I am, a hobo?").
• In The Lumberjack and the Tree-Elf from The Victors Project series, a two-year old Johanna is seen toddling around and trying to practice axe-throwing after Katniss had speculated that she'd been throwing axes since she could toddle in the original novels.
• In A Voice in the Wilderness, Eleya at one point wonders in her Internal Monologue "how the phekk do you fight something that can jump anywhere it wants?" This is after the Borg are shown using transwarp to Flash Step around the battlefield, and proves a very relevant question in the later Iconian War.
• At the end of Well-Matched, a prequel to Cadet Scrap, Kate and Sophie briefly discuss having an unofficial rematch, which is the premise of the latter story.
• The World of the Creatures takes place sometime in September of 2012. At one point, The 10th Doctor mentions not being very well versed in watercolors or beekeeping. The 11th Doctor would express an interest in learning these two hobbies in the May 2013 episode, "The Name of the Doctor." In addition, The Ninth Doctor mentions wanting to learn how to fly a biplane. Eleven would finally get around to scheduling a lesson, but he was side tracked by the events of "The Impossible Astronaut".
• Two at the end of "Welcome to the New Mutants, Cypher, Hope You Survive". The first is when Doug explains that he used his hacking skills to duplicate his friends' powers in the Danger Room to symbolise that, while he knows his powers aren't the most combat-relevant, he also knows he has a team he can rely on, and Professor X gets a chill of premonition. On a lighter note, he then comments that if he'd copied Warlock's powers, complete with cosmetic enhancement, he'd have looked really weird. In the comics, Cypher is killed in New Mutants #60, and subsequently sort-of resurrected as "Douglock".

Films — Animation

• An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island possibly does this with what Fievel says at the beginning:
  Fievel: I dreamed that we moved out West where I became a famous gunslinger!
  Tanya: Yeah, like that would ever happen.
  Fievel: It seemed real to me!
• Bambi II: Ronno, the bullying deer Bambi encounters, is the deer he fights as a stag in the original film. Following the encounter with the porcupine, Ronno tries to push Faline away as she protests, and they fight each other in a similar manner as they do once they're older.
• In The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water, after seeing the chaos Bikini Bottom is in after Krabby Patties are gone, Plankton gloats that he could rule the world with the formula. He does that in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
• Thor: Tales of Asgard is based on the Marvel version of Thor, but set when he's a teenager. While he uses swords throughout the film, Mjolnir is briefly seen in Odin's treasure room, and at one point he throws a wooden mallet and is surprised at how well it works.
  • Loki's heritage is never revealed, but he's notably more comfortable than the others in the frozen climate of Jotunheim. His magic also allows him to control water, which Amora claims is difficult but useful, since it also means controlling mist and ice.

Films — Live-Action

• Almost Famous has Jimmy Fallon's slimy agent character telling the guys from Stillwater to get themselves paid:
  Dennis Hope: If you think Mick Jagger will still be out there trying to be a rock star at age fifty, then you are sadly, sadly mistaken.
• In America America, set in Turkey in the 1890s, the ruling Turks have just unleashed a violent purge against the Christian Armenians. The Greeks in the village—the other persecuted ethnic minority—comfort themselves by saying that the Armenians' problems aren't their problems. Stavros the protagonist sarcastically asks the Greek elders who they think the Turks will come for next. Almost all the Greeks in Turkey were forcibly expelled after the end of World War I.
• Cloud Atlas:
  • Frobisher, when presented with the opportunity to slit Ayrs's throat, has a sort of reverse deja vu calling forward to Zachry slitting a Kona's throat.
  • Another one occurs in Frobisher's story, when Ayrs laughs at the idea of having sex with Frobisher; when they have reincarnated as Timothy and Georgette, they end up having an affair.
• A terrifying one in Kommissar , in which a pregnant Red Army commissar stays with a Jewish family during the Russian Civil War, c. 1920. As Yefim is dancing in the cellar to try and calm his children as the rumble of battle comes closer, Klavdia has a vision of the Magazanniks, wearing the Jewish star, being led into a Nazi concentration camp.
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: In the scene where Harry discovers that his father was a Seeker, Tom Riddle (aka Voldemort)'s Special Services award is visible.
• Indiana Jones:
  • In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Indy encounters two sword-wielding mooks and smiles to himself and reaches for his gun to dispatch them like in the classic scene from the original film, only to realise his gun is missing and promptly run away. The entire scene is framed like a Call-Back by upping the number of enemies and giving Indy and knowing confidence, but since Temple of Doom is a prequel it's really a call forward.
  • The opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade featuring River Phoenix as a young Indy is one big Call Forward.
• Mon Oncle Antoine is set in a rural Quebec asbestos mining town in the 1940s. The people in the town gripe about the owner of the asbestos mine failing to raise wages for the second consecutive year, while the mine owner makes a great show of riding through town on a sleigh, rather meanly flinging stockings with presents at the local children. In 1949 the Asbestos strike brought great upheaval to Quebec.
• In Quiz Show, Geritol CEO Martin Rittenhome, who's being Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee for rigging TV quizzes, makes a great show of not being the least bit worried about the impact it will have on the industry even if they are exposed, because people will tune in anyway just to watch the drama unfold. He also suggests that if they can't give the contestants the answers anymore, they can achieve the same results by just making the questions easier.
• Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins is full of these, the least of which being Velma referencing the first ever episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! at the end by suggesting they check out some "strange happenings at the museum."
• Plenty in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
  • An example would be '70s!Erik's "Imagine if [your claws] were metal" remark to Logan.
  • When '70s!Erik goes to retrieve his helmet from the Pentagon, he's shown wearing a fedora and dark suit ensemble very similar to Magneto's civilian appearance in X-Men. He also uses small metal balls, like in X2.
  • When Logan passes through a metal detector, he's briefly surprised that it doesn't go off. Doubles as a Call-Back to X-Men.
  • Used for Dramatic Irony when Trask says to Stryker that by the time the upcoming human-mutant war arrives, his son will be old enough to fight in it. Stryker's son does become a victim of this war, as he's a mutant and his own father turns on him.
  • In his New Era Speech, '70s!Magneto mentions "a Brotherhood of our kind."
  • In the finale, Beast uses a handful of hypodermic needles of his serum to suppress his mutant genes, in order to hide from a Sentinel's sensors. In the finale of X3: The Last Stand, Beast uses a handful of hypodermic needles of a different serum to suppress Magneto's mutant genes and gain the upper hand on Alcatraz.
• X-Men: Apocalypse has Scott commenting on Wolverine running away with "I hope we never see him again." A deleted scene also has him commenting on his new glasses with "I just hope the other kids don't start calling me Cyclops".

Literature

• When Patroclus first appears in The Achilleid, Statius mentions that he'll join Achilles in the Trojan War and that he too will die, referencing the events that will happen to him in The Iliad.
• Isaac Asimov's Prelude to Foundation:
  • In this Prequel, gravitic elevators are described as technology that might eventually be used to make gravitic spaceships, but it is assumed to take many centuries before it could work as such. Three such gravitic spaceships appear in the previously published Sequel, Foundation's Edge.
  • In the final chapter, as Hummin and Seldon discuss how to go about using psychohistory, Hummin recommends that he uses two foundations to his psychohistory, so that if one fails, the other can be used to carry on. Seldon would be inspired by this to create the First and Second Foundations.
  • In the final chapter, Hummin admits to having another plan, on another planet, that would provide a hope for humanity in case psychohistory fails. He is referring to Gaia.
• The BIONICLE: Adventures book series and concurrently released guide books of 2004-05, which chronologically took place a 1,000 years before the previous books and comics, loved doing this to the point that it was something of a running joke. Characters would regularly make jokes or tempt fate about very specific things that the readers know would happen — such as hoping to never have to see the creepy Bohrok swarm again (the Bohrok were the main antagonists of the 2002 story), sarcastically thinking about defeating an enemy simply by taking off its mask (that's how they beat most of the Rahi beasts in 2001), or hoping that no Manas crabs will be seen after two of them show up (the same two were giant mooks in 2001).
• Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian:
  • In "Black Colossus", Conan is told that his new harness makes him look better than many kings, and the narrator explicitly tells us he will remember that years later.
  • The idea for "The Tower of the Elephant" seems to have occurred to Howard while he was completing revisions on "The Phoenix on the Sword". The final draft of "The Phoenix on the Sword" contains the phrase "Zamora with its... towers of spider-haunted mystery," mirroring a scene that would appear in "The Tower of the Elephant".
• In Claudius the God, Agrippinilla remarks that in her time in exile as a sponge-diver she has become an excellent swimmer, and "if anyone ever wants to kill me, he had better not try drowning." Historically, Agrippinilla's son the Emperor Nero tried and failed to kill her by sending her sailing in a boat designed to sink.
• There are several of these in the Diogenes Club series, which wasn't written in chronological order.
  • In "The Gypsies in the Wood", set in the 1890s, Charles Beauregard investigates the mysterious disappearance of a small girl who was apparently abducted by The Fair Folk, and reflects sadly that they don't always manage to solve these cases, mentioning another girl named Rose Farrar who disappeared in comparable circumstances and was never seen again. "Angel Down, Sussex", set in the 1920s, Edwin Winthrop and Catriona Kaye investigate a fresh development in the Farrar case.
  • Another call-forward to "Angel Down, Sussex" occurs in the Seven Stars chapter "The Mummy's Heart", set in 1897. While they're discussing the dangerous occultist who is their present adversary, Beauregard's chief compares him to another occultist who is then just getting started: namely Aleister Crowley, who went on to become a notorious occultist in real life and an obstacle to Beauregard's successor Edwin in "Angel Down, Sussex".
  • In "Sorcerer Conjurer Wizard Witch", set in The '30s, Edwin and Catriona encounter the railway magnate Lord Kilpartinger at a society party and observe that he's under some kind of curse. Kilpartinger's bad end, and the entity responsible for it, are featured in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train", set in the Fifties.
  • Also in "Sorcerer, Conjurer, Wizard, Witch", Charles Beauregard, dealing with yet another Great Enchanter, wonders vaguely if they "crawl full-grown from filthy water". We don't learn if this is the case for Colonel Zenf, but it certainly is for his successor in The '80s, Derek Leech, who according to The Quorum emerged from the pollution of the Thames in precisely this manner in 1961 (according to "Cold Snap", immediately after Zenf's death).
  • "Cold Snap" itself contains multiple calls-forward, since it ties all of Newman's contemporary fantasy/horror novels into the Diogenes Club timeline by way of appearances from significant characters but is set before most of said novels. In one scene, for instance, a character mentions that he's looking to buy a house in the area and has taken a liking to the house the scene takes place in; in Jago, set fifteen years later, that character is living in that house, having bought it from the character he was talking to.
  • In The Serial Murders, Richard Jeperson meets an annoying parapsychologist named Adam Onions who works for an outfit called IΨT ("I-Psi-T", pronounced like "Eyesight"). IΨT first appeared in Jago and Onions features in Swellhead, both of which are set after The Serial Murders but were written earlier.
  • In "You Don't Have to Be Mad..." and again in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train", Richard has to deal with a government bureaucrat named Alastair Garnett, who would like to see the Club shut down and replaced with something more organized and biddable. Garnett originally appeared in Jago as the government's official liaison to IΨT, the more organized and biddable NGO that was given the Club's duties after the government forced the Club to shut down.
  • Richard's father, Captain Geoffrey Jeperson, appears as a schoolboy in The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School. The young Geoffrey is captain of the St Cuthbert's school team, and one of his friends refers to him almost invariably as "the Capt".
• Discworld: Quite a few in Night Watch, such as when a time-travelling Vimes inadvertently gives CMOT Dibbler the idea for his trademark catchphrase.
• Doctor Who Expanded Universe:
  • An interesting example in Harvest of Time has the Third Doctor and Delgado Master discover that aliens are capturing incarnations of the Master from past, future and alternate timelines. It's mentioned that some of them have a ghoulish appearance, which is obviously a reference to the Pratt/Beevers Master and possibly the skull version of the Simm Master (and there's a more direct reference to a young-looking incarnation with "the face of a politician"). But it's also mentioned that some of them are female, which looks like a nod to a certain future incarnation... except the book was published the previous year, so it's just a coincidence.
  • Engines of War:
    • Borusa, as the "possibility engine", gains omniscience and omnipotence by absorbing the Time Vortex, just like Rose as the Bad Wolf. He also uses his power to wipe an army of Daleks from existence.
    • Rassilon inquires if "the Doctor" has managed to track down The Master. Which he won't, until due time. Rassilon even points out he "Saw into the eye of the war."
    • It's explicitly mentioned that Rassilon goes rat-tat-tat-tat with his gauntlet's fingers.
    • There's a weapon the Time Lords think can stop the war. It's first thought to be the Moment from the Omega arsenal.
      Borusa: I see Gallifrey burning! I see the moment all things cease to be!
    • The Daleks refer to the Doctor as the Predator repeatedly.
    • It's implied that Borusa is an experiment on how to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, which was Rassilon's eventual plan for the Time Lords.
  • The 12 Doctors of Christmas: The Christmas Inversion has the Pertwee era regulars being transplanted into the events of The Christmas Invasion, and upon hearing that Britain of 2006 is undergoing a “Golden Age”, Captain Yates expresses intrigue with that idea.
  • In the First Doctor short story "The Book of Shadows" by Jim Mortimore, the Doctor finds out that part of the reason there's a terrible knot of paradoxes in 2nd century Alexandria is because of a book from his homeworld that is actually a powerful time travel artifact. The book was taken back in time from the 20th century to Alexandria, but what he doesn't understand is who took it to Earth in the first place. (And since the entire timeline gets unhappened, he never has a chance to find out.)
  • The Past Doctor Adventures novel The Time Travellers is set during Season 1, in a nineties London that was destroyed because the Doctor didn't stop WOTAN in Season 3. It also contains references to Cybermen in the Antarctic and the Daleks invading in 1963.
  • In the Past Doctor Adventures novel The Algebra of Ice, when the Seventh Doctor remonstrates with an Omnicidal Maniac, the villain throws his destruction of Skaro at him. The Doctor points out that he hadn't destroyed his own planet, and the villain retorts "Well, it's early days yet. They say the second crime's easier". This is clearly intended to invoke the Doctor's future destruction of Gallifrey in the Eighth Doctor Adventures (and, since the novel was published in late 2004, possibly in the New Series).
  • In the New Series Adventures novel In the Blood, the Tenth Doctor is considering giving Donna a blood transfusion (having used the Chameleon Arch to "humanify" some of his blood) and she's worried that the Doctor's blood would turn her into a Motor Mouth Insufferable Genius. The Doctor assures her that this won't happen, and couldn't possibly happen, under any circumstances.
  • RTD's novelization of "Rose" includes a cameo by Donna and glimpses of the future Doctors up to Thirteen (with a couple more possible ones after her).
  • In Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, set during the Fourth/Sarah/Harry period, Sarah Jane sees a collage of her entire life, including the future. The future scenes include her standing on a street corner with a stuffed owl, and, looking older, running from an exploding school and holding the hand of a young boy.
  • John Peel's novelisation of "The Power of the Daleks" opens shortly after "The Tenth Planet", with Sergeant (now Lt.) Benton, Sarah Jane Smith and Alison Williams arriving after the TARDIS leaves to do the clean-up. It also makes the company behind the Vulcan colony IMC from "Colony in Space".
• The Erast Fandorin series, a Russian series of mystery novels following Fandorin from 1876 to 1914, is full of these. The most pointed is probably at the end of The Coronation, set in 1896, when Freyby the English butler is asked his opinion of new tsar Nicholas II, and says that he'll be "the last of the Romanovs". (In fact, in the original Russian the novel is titled Coronation, or the Last of the Romanovs.)
• The prequel Fletch Won has a scene early on where a character asks Fletch about the Stanwyk's family table decor preferences, to which Fletch responds "Me? I don't even know what Stanwyks are.". This is a nod to the original novel (also the basis for the film adaptation released the same year as Fletch Won), which has Fletch investigate a curious offer by one Alan Stanwyk.
• Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot:
  • In the foreword to the short story collection The Labours of Hercules (1947), Poirot expresses a desire to retire to the country and grow vegetable marrows — exactly how he's spending his retirement in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926).
  • In The ABC Murders, Hastings alludes to Poirot wearing false moustaches. In Curtain, he reveals that he is wearing a fake moustache.
• Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi: A young Indiana Jones touches the Omphalos stone and has visions of his adult life from the first three movies.
• The Infernal Devices:
  • Magnus tells Tessa he has a thing for people with blue eyes and black hair. Who has blue eyes and black hair? Alec from The Mortal Instruments!
  • Also, Henry talking about inventing the Sensor.
  • Remember City of Fallen Angels when Jace sleeps in the Silent City and sees initials scratched onto the wall? Clockwork Prince reveals that those stood for "Jessamine Gray."
  • Magnus says to a probable ancestor of Alec “All Lightwoods look the same to me—”.
• In Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse, Mycroft is concerned that his withdrawal from society (because he has a heart condition he refuses to tell anyone about) will lead to him getting an entirely undeserved reputation as antisocial, and later worries that his newly increased appetite following his operation might, when combined with a more sedentary lifestyle, lead to him gaining weight.
• The Modesty Blaise series revolves around two retired criminals who become Heroic Neutral adventurers because they get dangerously bored when they're not In Harm's Way. The Night of Morningstar, one of the last novels in the series, opens with a prologue showing them on the eve of retirement and wondering if a quiet life will suit them.
• Star Trek Expanded Universe:
  • Battlestations! takes place at a point in the later years of the TOS timeline when transwarp technology has just been developed but has not had a chance to be thoroughly tested, as its main plot revolves around the theft of the technology.
  • Loads in the Flashbacks to Kirk's time in Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Forgotten History:
    • Spock is surprised that his human collegue thinks of the Onlies planet (a parallel Earth where most of humanity died) as "home". He then reflects that he doesn't know how he'd react if he encountered a timeline where Vulcan was destroyed.
    • The first time the Enterprise tries a slingshot, Spock has brief glimpses of the events of "Assignment: Earth", just as Kirk had brief glimpses of the future in "The Voyage Home".
    • The mission that ends Enterprise's five year journey is filled with them. Chapel, having given up on her crush on Spock, is thinking of becoming an M.D.. Kirk's getting bored with the heartbreak of captaining and is looking to pack it all in. Spock reflects on the many times he's lost emotional control over the original and animated series, thinking maybe it's time he got around to taking the kohlinahr.
    • Griswold, the commissioner sent to ruin Kirk, has attitudes on the Prime Directive more similar to that of Picard's era (i.e., refuse to lift a finger to help people who are dying, even when there's no real risk). It also serves as a transition between the way the Directive is treated in Kirk's era, and that of the TNG era.
    • The fate of the first timeship is similar to the events of "Time Squared", disappearing from existence when the events that caused it to be destroyed don't happen.
    • Scotty, thinking about that Probert fellow he's heard of, mentions the man has ideas about making the saucer sections of starships bigger. In a handful of decades, those ideas will be implement, with Enterprise-D and E having incredibly large saucers.
    • Also, Scott's meeting with Kirk shows the man has shifted from the bold explorer of the original series, to the weary man seen in "The Motion Picture".
    • Spock, post-V'Ger merging, has become more accepting of emotions, reflecting his character development from Wrath of Khan. Another reason the Vulcans are so alarmed by this is because he's reminding them a bit too much of Sybok.
    • Spock is also mentioned to have adopted Saavik.
    • At the climax, T'Pring mentions in the alternate timeline, the Klingons were forced to give peace with the Vulcans a chance after... something happened, but they immediately clam up, just in case they say too much.
    • Alternate T'Pring's parting words to Spock mention an increase in Vulcan-Romulan relations, something Spock finds fascinating.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • At the end of Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, the last of the Brian Daley Han Solo prequel novels, Han and Chewie – broke as usual – decide to convince Jabba the Hutt to hire them for another Kessel Run.
  • The Han Solo Trilogy:
  • In the first book, Han Solo's accounts are flagged by Corellian Security Force officer Inspector Hal Horn, the father of Corran Horn from the X-Wing Series. Han later mentions this when they run into each other in I, Jedi, and Corran takes on his alias Jenos Idanian as well, which his grandfather tells him about (though not that it was Han's).
  • Greedo is noted as being a terrible shot and an idiot who will most likely get himself killed.
  • A subtler one: Jabba is already well known to enjoy humanoid females, and after meeting with Bria to coordinate the attack on Ylesia, comments that he wouldn't mind having her as a dancer. Han replies that it might not be wise to try to force a trained and experienced Rebel commander into that situation. As anyone who's seen Return of the Jedi knows, Jabba will find out soon enough just how true that is.
• In Tomorrow's Ghost by Anthony Price, Frances Fitzgibbon is helped toward the solution of the mystery by a saying that she recalls hearing from her mentor David Audley, which he attributed to one of his old teachers. Price's next novel, The Hour of the Donkey, is a prequel set forty years earlier, in which the teacher appears as a character and at one point applies the same saying.
• In the first Torchwood novel, Another Life, set early in the first season, but published the following year, Ianto hears Owen use the word "cybersex", and briefly panics, before realising it's nothing to do with his secret.
• Tortall Universe:
  • The Beka Cooper trilogy is set two hundred years before the rest of the continuity. The second book in particular, Bloodhound, is rife with references to locations, nations and noble families that feature heavily in the other Tortall books. One notable example is Sir Lionel of Trebond, the ancestor of the heroine of the first ever Tortall series, Song of the Lioness. Luckily she doesn't inherit his personality, though.
  • The Numair Chronicles is an interquel between the first two subseries, Song of the Lioness and The Immortals.
    • One of Arram's fellow students, Tristan Denane, announces he's going to change his last name to something more impressive, intending that afterwards no one will know what his original, boring name was. He was introduced in Wolf-Speaker, of the Immortals quartet, as "Tristan Staghorn".
    • Master Yadeen teaches Arram juggling. This skill will come in handy after he flees Carthak and has to avoid using his magic, but doesn't know many other ways to earn a living.
    • On one of his lessons walking in the river, Arram finds a Stormwing figurine on the riverbed. Prince Ozorne is fascinated with it when Arram shows it to him. Ozorne's reign as Emperor Mage ends when he is transformed into one.
    • Just like in Trickster's Queen, a royal heir is killed when a suspicious storm sinks his ship.
    • Master Yadeen starts Arram on his bad habit of hanging on to the horn of his saddle while riding.
• In the prequel to The Tripods, there's a scene where the protagonist, Laurie, looks up at the sky and wonders if sometime in the future, other humans will look up at the sky and 'dream of freedom'. This is a Call-Back to a scene in the first book where Will, Henry and Beanpole find themselves looking up at the sky after they arrive in at the mountain resistance base.
• Vorkosigan Saga: In Cetaganda, Miles Vorkosigan learns in passing something that will launch the plot of Ethan of Athos, written several years earlier.
• While watching an orc gladiator called Thrall fight in Durnholde Keep, the titular character in Arthas: Rise of the Lich King worries that if the orc escapes, he could teach his considerable tactical and strategical skills to other orcs, triggering the orcs' resurgence as a major faction in Azeroth. Another Warcraft Expanded Universe novel, Lord of the Clans, features Thrall doing exactly that.
  • The two books are written by the same woman, Christie Golden, and the reference is a rare not-very-disruptive tidbit of Author Appeal.
• Warhammer 40,000 has the Horus Heresy series of novels, which details the titular event about 10,000 years before the "current day" of the game that permanently crippled the Imperium, and led to the current state of the setting. All throughout the series, this trope occurs many, many times.
  • The very first chapter, beside being a sort of framing device for the series, was essentially a giant Late-Arrival Spoiler.
• In the Warrior Cats Interquel Firestar's Quest, Firestar wonders if there is another afterlife for evil cats, and if Brambleclaw will ever go there. The Dark Forest, which is exactly that, was previously revealed in The New Prophecy, which Firestar's Quest precedes. And Brambleclaw trains there.

Live-Action TV

• Angel:
  • A flashback to WWII in the episode "Why We Fight" contained the following dialogue (they were stuck on a submarine at the time):
    Angel: I'm not getting trapped at the bottom of the sea!
    Spike: And I'm not getting experimented on by the government!
  • This becomes even more awesome if you've paid attention. Angel was drafted by the then-new Initiative, who does the aforementioned experimenting on Spike in 1999 or 2000 and the experiment is hinted to be based off the Nazi research the US was trying to get off that ship, which Spike torched. Spike also wears the Nazi uniform because he likes the jacket, a call-forward to the history of his famous leather duster, which was also taken from the corpse of an enemy. Also, weights are used to sink Angel to the bottom of the sea, much like what his son Connor would do to him almost 60 years later. Spike being forced to rush for cover before sunrise before he gets burned up is a call forward to the running gag of him running through Sunnydale, on fire, to get places during daylight on the parent show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • In Spike's first appearance, Giles mentions that he got his nickname by driving railroad spikes through his victims' heads. Three seasons later, "Fool For Love" reveals that, before he became a vampire, Spike was a fop best known for his atrocious poetry; one of his "critics" claims that he'd rather have a railroad spike driven through his head than listen to it. Apparently, he got his wish...
• Arrowverse:
  • Arrow:
    • In a flashback, Oliver hides his identity by putting his hood up, leaving another character to sarcastically remark that he'd still be recognisable even if he covered his face in greasepaint. This is a reference to Oliver's early-season costume, before he started wearing a mask, and doubles as Self-Deprecation.
    • When Felicity is worried about the child she is pregnant with, Alena suggests protecting it in the same way they would a computer program; put up firewalls and take it off the grid. This references how Felicity raises Mia in the middle of nowhere and has Nyssa teach her to defend herself.
  • The Flash (2014): In "What's Past is Prologue", Wells tells Cisco in a scene taking place during the events of the pilot, "I have to say, I have a vibe about you. About what you're destined to become." In the second season, Cisco became the meta-human superhero known as Vibe.
• Breaking Bad:
  • Done in one episode, and rather fiendishly. Jane, via flashback: "That was so sweet, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little..." Jane died by asphyxiating on her own vomit
  • In a flashback, Hector Salamanca sits on a wooden chair that oddly looks like a wheelchair. In present day, Hector is invalid.
  • In the Season 5B premiere, a flashforward to the end of the season shows Walt go back to his now-abandoned house to pick up the ricin he hid there. As he's leaving, his neighbor spots him, staring at Walt. Walt says to her "Hello Carol" as she drops her groceries in shock. Later in the episode during the main timeline, as the White family gets out of their car, Walt again says hello to Carol, who this time, happily says hello back.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The End of Time": The penultimate scene has the Doctor going back in time to see Rose for one final time, in Rose's timeline before she meets him for the first time. Thus:
    • Rose advises her mother Jackie to dump her current boyfriend, and suggests that maybe she'll find someone better one day.
    • The Doctor tells Rose, who assumes he's drunk from ringing in the New Year a little too hard, that she's going to have a "really great year".
  • River Song is prone to these, due to the extremely timey-wimey nature of her timeline. For instance, in "The Wedding of River Song", where the Doctor is (apparently) about to die; River says that "Time can be rewritten," with the Doctor responding "Don't you dare," the same thing she said at her death. And the way that she knocked the Doctor out and handcuffed him to take his place in a Heroic Sacrifice was exactly the same thing her mum, Amy did, in "The Eleventh Hour".
    • In "Flesh and Stone", River Song unwittingly references her own death in her future from last season.
      River: You, me, handcuffs. Must it always end this way?
    • And it happens again in "The Impossible Astronaut", rather more poignantly this time around.
      River: That man is going to be the death of me.
  • Quite a few show up in "The Day of the Doctor":
    • The Tenth Doctor's last line in the special? "I don't wanna go."
    • At one point, Ten finds Eleven's fez. And puts it on.
    • The Moment as a whole has plenty of these; she intended to take the form of one of the Doctor's trusted companions, but accidentally grabbed Rose Tyler, who he hadn't met yet. Furthermore, she's technically not Rose, but Bad Wolf.
      War Doctor: Oh, Bad Wolf girl, I could kiss you!
      The Moment: Yup, that's gonna happen.
      Tenth Doctor: Sorry, did you say "Bad Wolf"?
    • "I hope the ears are a bit less conspicuous this time around."
• Downton Abbey: Mrs. Hughes does a corker when it comes to this trope; it's so bad that millions of fans still smack their hands to their heads when they hear it. "What if there's a flood? What if there's a war?" – that line is in 1913... and we ALL know that 1914 brings said war that she used in her example.
• Friends:
  • A flashback has Ross proudly tell his parents that his new girlfriend is really athletic; she's on the lacrosse team and the golf team. Yes, Carol "plays for both teams," as Ross will find out when she leaves him for Susan in the pilot.
  • Friends has loads, especially in their first flashback episode: Phoebe mentions that "cute naked guy" was starting to put on some weight, Ross is excited about Carol befriending "a Susan something" and encourages her to have a "girl's night," Chandler says he doesn't wanna have a roommate handsome enough to relegate him (Chandler) as "the funny one," Monica runs into Rachel and then bets she's never gonna see her again, the gang (then consisting of four of the six main characters) comment on how the bar is closing and wonder where are they going to hang out...
  • In "The One With All The Thanksgivings", there's a flashback where a teenage Monica has a crush on Chandler and makes him some mac'n'cheese for Thanksgiving dinner. Afterward she asks if he liked it, and he somewhat sarcastically remarks, "Yeah, it was great. You should be a chef." Monica giggles and says, "Okay!"
• This might be a drinking game in Gotham which includes Oswald Cobblepot hating being nicknamed "The Penguin," Edward Nigma having a mug with a question mark on it, a young Bruce Wayne expressing his disgust from a vigilante who kills criminals...
• Home Improvement: On one episode, Tim shows the audience the pilot episode of Tool Time to celebrate the show's fifth anniversary. The pilot consisted of a bearded Tim and clean-shaven Al, who also had complete faith in "an expert like Tim" wielding a giant sledgehammer while Al held the stake...
• House of the Dragon has several to Game of Thrones:
  • Viserys believes in the prophecy of the Song of Ice and Fire about a great and cold threat that will descend upon Westeros from the North, which will happen more or less 200 years later in the form of the Night King and his armies of White Walkers and undead.
  • Viserys also says a Targaryen will have to be on the Iron Throne to unite Westeros and prevent this, which will end up only partially true (said Targaryen — Daenerys — will be on the throne of Dragonstone when it happens at least), and he owns the Valyrian steel dagger that would be used by Arya Stark.
  • Right as he talks about said threat, the editing of the scene has Lord Rickon Stark pledging fealty to Rhaenyra at the ceremony to officialize her as Crown Princess. House Stark will be of crucial importance in dealing with that threat.
  • Speaking of the Starks, Rhaenyra Targaryen acknowledges House Stark's reputation as unwavering oathkeepers. In Game of Thrones, oaths are the lynchpin of the Starks' storyline, with Ned dying because he blindly held onto one, Robb losing a war and his life because he broke one, and Jon getting out of one by temporarily dying.
  • When Daemon Targaryen threatens his Kingsguard, he warns them that if they betray Rhaenyra, they will die screaming. This is exactly what Daenerys will tell her Dothraki (about their enemies, but still) in the first season's finale of Game of Thrones.
  • Rhaenyra says that she does not want to rule over a kingdom of ash. Her descendant Daenerys will make a similar statement.
• Legion: In the series finale, Charles Xavier tells his wife Gabrielle that he "always wanted to become a teacher," which hints that he'll open the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters and form the X-Men.
• Little House on the Prairie: One episode, set in the late 1800s, has a serious example. A Jewish man tells his son, Percival, that their people have to make sure to keep their culture alive because for centuries people have tried to destroy their people. Percival dismisses this by saying that "People are more educated now. That kind of craziness won't happen again." What makes this even more notable is the fact that Percival is probably the most intelligent and sensible character in the episode, maybe the entire series.
  • Well, Percival was right in his suspicion that "that kind of craziness" wouldn't happen in America, which is where they are and (presumably) where they're going to stay.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
  • A character hypes up the hospitality of the Dwarves and gets disappointing results.
  • The strongest clue that the Stranger is future Gandalf is him telling Nori Brandyfoot to always follow her nose whenever she has a doubt. He would make this statement again several centuries later to Meriadoc Brandybuck.
• Lost: In "Meet Kevin Johnson", Sayid becomes violently angry at Michael because he is working for Ben. Of course, we learned five episodes earlier that in the future Sayid himself will be working for Ben.
• Mad Men: A staple, with respect to Real Life historical events. The unfortunate scheduling of Roger Sterling's daughter's wedding for November 23, 1963 (the day after John F. Kennedy's assassination) is merely the most blatant.
  • One that stands out as particularly funny to New Yorkers is the time Peggy considers the impending construction of the Second Avenue Line to be a serious plus for buying a new apartment on the Upper East Side in Season 6 (1968). The Second Avenue Line only broke ground in 2007 and had its first stretch of three stations open in 2017, with most of the planned line still not anywhere close to completion as of 2020.
• Merlin: In an early episode, whilst watching Arthur and Lancelot share a drink together, Merlin jokingly invites Guinevere to play a game of "Who Would You Rather?" She laughs and states that she'll never have to chose between them. Only the audience knows that one day she'll have to do exactly this, and that the entire future of Camelot may rise or fall on her choice.
• Murdoch Mysteries: Used to throw these in once in a while in relation to future Real Life events, but the writers are getting pretty heavy-handed in Season 5 to the point where it's happening at least Once per Episode. And they're not being very subtle either. In a recent episode Detective Murdoch and Constable Crabtree are pondering the possible uses of a sonically-activated switch used to execute the Murder of the Week which actually turns out to be an elaborate suicide:
  Crabtree: Perhaps one day you could turn lights on and off by clapping your hands.
• NCIS:
  • The episode "Baltimore" has flashbacks to how Gibbs and DiNozzo met when DiNozzo was a Baltimore detective. The episode is littered with Call Forwards.
    Tony DiNozzo: Be a Navy cop? I'd rather have the plague.
  • The episode "So It Goes" features flashbacks of a younger Ducky in the 1960s with several ironic call-forwards:
    Ducky: I've had it up to here with cadavers. To be honest, if I never see another dead body again, it'll be too soon.
    [...]
    Ducky: Do I look like the bow tie type to you?
    Maggie: Well, it's time to update your wardrobe. You're a medical doctor, not Doctor Who.
  • "Cadence" has a flashback of teenaged DiNozzo in military school failing to get a movie reference:
    Coach Tanner: "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." The Godfather? Come on, kid, it's a classic.
• Once Upon a Time: When Snow meets Red for the first time, she's not yet sure she can trust her so she throws out three different aliases- "Frosty", "Margaret", and "Mary". "Mary Margaret" ends up being the name of her counterpart in Storybrooke.
• In a flashback on Open Heart, Dylan helps her dad find his keys in the mass of newspaper clippings he’s investigating. He jokes that it was a test to see if she could be a detective. Now that he’s disappeared, she seems to have taken that advice to heart.
• Poirot: At the end of "The Blue Train"; one of the characters expresses a desire to travel, and remarks that she's booked passage on the Orient Express. She inquires whether Poirot has ridden that train; Poirot replies that he hasn't but he must get around to it some day. We all know that he will, and what will happen when he does...
• Revolution: In episode 10, in a flashback to the Trenton Campaign (that happened 10 years ago), Monroe jokes that they will run out of bullets and will have to use swords like pirates. He was right.
• The Sandman opens with Morpheus being captured by humans who wish to exploit his powers. A later episode, "The Sound of Her Wings", has a flashback to before that happened, in which Morpheus warns his friend Hob to avoid attracting too much notice from ordinary humans, because although he's immortal he can still be injured — or captured.
• Seinfeld has several in the final-season episode "The Betrayal", which runs Back to Front. After reaching the beginning of the story, we're treated to a Tag during the end-credits which jumps a whole two years back in time and continues to shed light on the plot we just watched through multiple references to the future. Then, at the very end of the credits we get the final Tag, where we see Jerry moving into his apartment 10 years earlier. Kramer greets Jerry in the hall but refuses Jerry's offer of free pizza - completely out of character for the Kramer we've come to know. The final lines Call Forward to Kramer's entire character for the rest of the series.
  Jerry: I just ordered a pizza. Want some of it?
  Kramer: No, no, no. I couldn't impose.
  Jerry: Why not? We're neighbors. What's mine is yours.
  Kramer: [Peeks into Jerry's apartment with a sudden interest] Really?
• Smallville: Constantly. Yes, we get it, he's going to be Superman.
  • They're probably compensating for being unable to actually use the S-word due to copyright limitations.
  • One of the most chilling examples was in a Happy Ending where both Clark and Lex tell each other how much they treasure their friendship, hoping nothing ever drives them apart.
• Stargate SG-1: This occurs in a season eight episode, but in this case the reference is to the spin-off series Stargate Atlantis. After the Atlantis team goes through the gate to the Pegasus galaxy, those on Earth have had no contact from them and don't know what they've found on the other side. The audience, having watched the other series, does know: they're in the Lost City, which is actually a city-sized spaceship that until recently was at the bottom of an ocean. However, in response to the assumption that the Atlantis team found the Lost City, Dr. Novak states, "As far as we know, the Atlantis team found another outpost like the one in Antarctica. Could be on a moon, or at the bottom of some deep, dark ocean."
• Star Trek: Discovery:
  • Mirror-Lorca says that he was pulled to the Mirror Universe via a freak interaction of a transporter beam with a passing ion storm, precisely how the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise will be roughly a decade later.
  • Voq refers to the resistance as an "alliance" of species united against the Terran Empire. By the 24th century, this will become the formalized name of the group - the Klingon/Cardassian Alliance.
  • Burnham makes reference to the U.S.S. Enterprise as a highly sought-after posting for a Starfleet officer.
  • Overlapping with Call-Back, the crew reacts with surprise that their universe's USS Defiant found its way to the Mirror Universe almost a century prior, because from their point of view, the Defiant is still around, functioning normally. It will not disappear from their universe until the TOS episode "The Tholian Web".
  • Sarek confirms that it is his explicit desire for his son Spock to attend the Vulcan Expeditionary Group. We learn in "Journey to Babel" that Spock's decision to go against his father's wishes will be a source of years-long strife between the two.
  • In the season 1 finale, Starfleet decides to put research on the Spore Drive on hold until they can devise a way to use it without a human being physically connected to it and genetically modified for the job (which is illegal under Federation law). By the late 24th century, at least, they've not yet found a way. Also, in season 2, Stamets learns that the spore drive itself is harming the mycelial network ecosystem and decides to seal off the network.
  • In season 2, Number One tells Pike that the recently-installed holo-communication system is causing massive failures aboard the Enterprise. He orders the system removed and have the crew go back to using old-fashioned screens for communication. According to Pike, he never liked the damn thing anyway - it makes everyone looks like a ghost. Presumably, the rest of Starfleet will eventually follow suit to the point where it won't be re-introduced until the 24th century (and abandoned just as quickly).
  • In the same episode, Pike comments that he doubts any chief engineer will love the Enterprise as much as Louvier. Oh, laddie, if ye only knew...
  • Tyler reveals, in an emergency and to Pike's surprise, that Section 31 uses communicators built into their Starfleet badges. The rest of Starfleet won't get that tech for another century or so.
• In the 2013 remastered Blu-Ray edition of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Future Imperfect", Riker's service record in the imaginary future says his first captiancy was the USS Titan, which will eventually prove to be correct. (Other references in that illusion which later came to pass are coincidences or Call-Backs, but this one was added after Riker was made captain of the Titan in Star Trek: Nemesis.)
• The Tudors:
  • In season one, Henry VIII says to Anne Boleyn, "Your neck. I love your neck." Everyone who knows the history - or Googles Anne Boleyn - knows that in season two he'll be paying a French swordsman to sever that neck.
  • On meeting Catherine Howard, Henry asks her if she can write. She tells him "enough to write a letter". It is her love letter to Culpepper that eventually gets her killed.
• Young Sheldon: In "A Swedish Science Thing and the Equation for Toast", child versions of Leonard, Penny, Raj, Howard, Bernadette and Amy (in that order) from The Big Bang Theory all appear at the very end. Leonard and Howard's mothers are also heard.

Music

• Lupe Fiasco's The Die (a prequel to The Cool) combines this with Continuity Nod — Michael Young History's unnamed friend says "And if them niggas do kill you in the next few minutes, just remember my nigga, it's a heaven for a G," a reference to "The Cool" (Michael Young History)'s line "Hustler for death, no Heaven for a gangster" in the first CD.

Roleplay

• For Dino Attack RPG, a number of Call-Forwards were made in the short story First Assignment:
  • Williams, Lisa, and Batman were introduced via the Final Battle's comm chatter, while Walker made a brief cameo appearance. Williams, Lisa, and Walker all appear in First Assignment, with Batman given a mention. Rick and Trouble (and possibly Stranger) make early appearances as well.
  • Walker suggests the nickname "Adventure" to Rick, who later goes by that nickname in At War's End. Similarly, Rick bestows the nickname "honcho" upon Rex, which is what he always called Rex in At War's End.
  • Rick mentions the original Headquarters Squad and Ronald E. Army. Rex also finds a deli called Tzenovich's Sandwiches, possibly the same shop opened up by Ivan Tzenovich.
  • invoked The comm chatter mentions Condr, Mutant Vinscale Octomus, ShadowTech, the Raptors gang, a train that still runs, and rotten eggs in the Res-Q Station, which are all elements from the early days of Dino Attack RPG. The comm chatter also features a Dino Attack agent who tells other agents to stop making references prompting another Dino Attack agent to respond with a Monty Python's Flying Circus quote, just like a similar discussion that took place during the Final Battle's comm chatter.
  • The entire scene with Rex and Trouble in the deli takes place on Playwell Avenue. In the Final Battle, Playwell Avenue was the site where Trouble sacrifices himself to save Rex, making this a retroactive case of bittersweet Book Ends.
• We Are Our Avatars: Apparently, Avance worked on the Nekroz armors when he was younger.

Theatre

• The 2013 farce The Duck House, based around the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal, featured a few nods to "upcoming" political scandals; for instance, the main character is hoping to take over Andrew Mitchell's role in the shadow cabinet, thinking that a man who rides a bicycle isn't the sort to make a fuss about things.
• Peter and the Starcatcher (a prequel to Peter Pan) has a gag with the boys, when they're lost:
  Boys: We're lost!
  Molly: [scolding them for their outburst] Boys!
  Boys: We're lost!
  Molly: Boys!
• In Noah Smith's stage version of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Lanyon's final appearance is in a flashback to the night before he was murdered by Jekyll's evil alter ego. The flashback ends with him jokingly remarking that Jekyll is going to be the death of him one day.
• Wicked has some straight mythology gags like Elphaba's line "I'll be so happy I could melt," but also a less comedic instance: her vision of "a celebration throughout Oz that's all to do with me."
  Nessarose: What's in the punch?
  Boq: Lemons and melons and pears-
  Nessarose: Oh my.

Video Games

• In the best ending of The Art of Theft Trilby decides to go back to England and start breaking into manors of the recently deceased, figuring it would be safer. He does this in 5 Days A Stranger: it backfires horribly.
• Assassin's Creed:
  • Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag:
    • Since Edward is the father of Haytham, several of their actions parallel each other in ironic ways. He also has similarities to his grandson Connor.
    • Both of them come in by ship and were tasked by their superiors to deliver something valuable. However, Haytham had this his whole time, whereas Edward stole this from an Assassin.
    • The first few moments of the game reveal the supposed Assassin is actually a Templar. Strangely, Haytham was this originally, while Edward does this for personal gain.
    • Like Connor, Edward develops a lot of his core fighting skills and freerunning and climbing skills from his prior experience as a sailor, similar to Connor who could run on trees and is a capable hunter because of his Native American upbringing and heritage. Both Edward and Connor become The Captain of the Cool Ship. Edward is likewise very Hotblooded and reckless, closer to Connor than Haytham who is an Imperturbable Englishman.
    • This game creates a 3-for-3 of Kenways sentenced to death by hanging and later rescued. Like Connor, Edward is rescued by the Assassin Mentor.
  • Assassin's Creed Rogue:
    • After killing Charles Dorian, upon learning that Connor's Brotherhood had pretty much undone everything he did over the course of the game during the American Revolution, Shay notes that perhaps the Templars should try starting their own revolution.
    • The "Tablet" modern-day sidequest has numerous emails about Abstergo Entertainment products in development; specifically mentioned are "Murder in the Levant", "Washington and the Wolf", and "The Liberation of Lady Aveline". These are all levels on the (fake) level select screen that greets you when first playing Assassin's Creed: Unity.
    • One of Melanie's tablet messages is telling an analyst they'll be studying Arno Dorian's history.
    • The War Letters you collect throughout the game references various characters and plots throughout the later parts of the Kenway Family Saga as well as Unity.
    • One letter details the Templars finding the Mayan city from Liberation, along with Madeline D'ilse's application to the Templars. Robert Faulkner is the author of one of the letters, where he declines being captain of the Aquila, but states he'd be willing to be first mate.
  • Assassin's Creed Origins:
    • Some brainwashed minions of Flavius Metellus can be found in Cyrene, reciting a few familiar bits of their master's philosophy, such as "we need no creed", and "all we require is the world to be as it is".
    • During the battle against Flavius, the Apple illusions used take on the form of people Bayek has killed, much like what Al Mualim did during his battle with Altaïr.
    • When Aya finally assassinates Julius Caesar, she parts with words that wouldn't show up again until almost 1500 years later: ''requiescat in pace''.
    • The end of The Hidden Ones has Bayek and Aya codify what will become one of the central tenets of the Creed - stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent.
    • After the main story of Curse of the Pharaohs, the dreamseer of Thebes assures a troubled Bayek that he "works in the dark, to serve the light".
  • Assassin's Creed: Odyssey:
    • Before sending their child off with Darius, the Eagle Bearer gives them a red rag. The montage at the end of chapter 3 shows the kid wears it all through their life, passing it through their kids, all the way to their eventual descendant, Aya.
    • One of the Isu armor pieces the Eagle Bearer can get their hands on notes it will one day be found by the Hidden Ones co-founder Bayek.
    • As Pythagoras tells The Eagle Bearer about the origins of the Cult of Kosmos and the Greco-Persian Wars, they see visions of the future conflict between the Assassins and the Templars that will span for millennia as well as their encounter with Layla Hassan in the present day.
  • Assassin's Creed: Valhalla:
    • An audio recording between Desmond and Rebecca that Layla can listen to has him mentioning a Bleeding Effect moment where he ended up on a beach in the Caribbean with a bunch of pirates, which is implied to be a memory of Edward Kenway.
    • The medallions that Eivor takes off the bodies of felled members of the Order of the Ancients, that serve as the symbol for their order, are of the exact same design as the one worn on Templar Shay Patrick Cormac's belt.
    • It's implied that the Piece of Eden that Eivor gives the Iroquois for safekeeping after killing Gorm is the exact same one belonging to Kanatahséton that Connor will use around 900 years later. Before that, Eivor even manages to find the entrance to the Grand Temple.
    • After Odin speaks with Gunlodr/Minerva about her attempts to communicate with the future and they leave, Ezio's voice can be heard coming out of the mirror from the moment he met her in the Vault beneath the Vatican.
    • A Mentor of the Hidden Ones named Fuladh asks Hytham to meet them at Aluh-Amut, aka Alamut, in 879 to discuss Basim's betrayal of the Order by attacking Eivor and Sigurd.
• Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, being an interquel in the original series, is filled with hints at what will happen in Baldur's Gate II, that every veteran player will immediately recognize. Some are so explicit to be borderline spoiler for players playing the saga for the first time and doing a linear walkthrough. For example mentions of Ellisime, Suldanesselar and "The Exile" (Jon Irenicus) together with the latter's ties with the elves, but also visions of the Slayer as a manifestation of Bhaal's taint.
• Battle for Wesnoth: Upon first using Ruby of Fire in The Rise of Wesnoth, Haldric comments that someone should put it in a scepter or something, referencing how it is part of Sceptre of Fire in the original campaign, Heir to the Throne.
• Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge: At the end of the game, Grunty tells Klungo to call her sisters, and Banjo and Kazooie invite Mumbo and Bottles over to play cards, setting the stage for Banjo-Tooie.
• Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! has a fair amount.
  • Jack swears that once he becomes president of Hyperion, he would destroy every Claptrap robot. Come Borderlands 2, he has made good on this threat, destroying all but one that escaped. And you helped him do it, as shown in the ending cutscene of The Pre-Sequels' The Claptastic Voyage DLC.
  • Janey briefly flirts with Nisha before deciding the Lawbringer isn't really her type. Nisha responds that she likes them "handsome" anyway. Come 2, she's the main squeeze of Handsome Jack.
  • In tie-in quest connected to Tales from the Borderlands, the Vault Hunters ask how Jack would like to die. He replies "Somewhere warm with a sexy chick nearby." He meets his end in the Vault of the Warrior, a Lethal Lava Land, in 2. Lilith is nearby, potentially doing the deed herself.
• In Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle, Chemi'n, before being woken from his trance, says "The blonde will be our saviour." Irrelevant to this game, but a reference to Sunny, the protagonist of the game it was spun off from. Morgane's comment after talking to Brainless Beauty Sonia, when she says she's "developing a real hatred for idiotic blondes", also references her own future interaction with Sunny.
• In Day of the Tentacle, Hoagie gets stuck two centuries in the past and, in an attempt to get back to his own time, aids Ben Franklin in the discovery of electric current. In return, Franklin promises to name one of his inventions after him.
• In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Vergil acquires the Beowulf gauntlets and pulls off some rather... impressive martial arts. The game is a prequel to the first one. In the first game, after the first Nelo Angelo fight, the boss drops his sword and gets the drop on Dante with his bare hands. Nelo Angelo is actually Vergil, and the hidden ending sequence of 3 shows Vergil challenging Mundus, the first game's Big Bad to a fight, after his Final Battle with Dante, explaining how he ended up in Mundus's service.
• In Dot's Home, Dot time travels back to 1992, when her older sister Georgia was born. Her father Hank is worried about her mother Evelyn moving out of Detroit with her for "better opportunities" because he doesn't want Georgia to be lonely. Dot, hiding that she's his future daughter, tells him that she has a feeling that Georgia won't be alone, to his confusion, but Dot shrugs it off.
  Hank: You know something I don't Miss Dot?
  Dot: Not a thing, Mr. Hawkins.
• Final Fantasy XII's Bestiary gives a brief mention of the beginnings of Final Fantasy Tactics's dominant Church of Glabados and its false prophet/demonic founder, Saint Ajora. This mention causes a bit of a translation plot hole, as Ajora is a woman in the Japanese version and a man in English. FFT itself had a bit of trouble with Ajora's gender as well.
  • Other plot holes exist here as well. FFXII takes place too far in the past for Ajora to have existed yet, the 13 Espers have not yet become the 12 (+1) Lucavi that Ajora used to cause the events she would eventually be worshipped for...
• Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is a prequel to the previous game, Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, and feature a few foreshadowing moments. Since Blazing Blade was the first game to be released in the west, while Binding Blade was never released, western players who weren't researching the previous game were a little confused.
  • A major example is that Prince Zephiel, a character the heroes must protect in Blazing Blade, grows up to become the antagonist of Binding Blade.
  • Another one is the appearance of Sophia near the end of Blazing Blade; without knowing that she's a major character in Binding Blade and important to the story, western players generally take her for a random cute girl that gives the hero an item after some mysterious dialog.
  • Another one is the appearance of the Manakete Fae in Chapter 22. She's in the NPC house, and Hawkeye says her name if he goes in there.
  • The B Support between Eliwood and Hector has the latter recalling a dream he's had where a blue-haired man with a great beard is speaking affectionately to his blue-haired daughter and a red-haired Pheraen boy takes the man's daughter away. Eliwood realizes that it's a prophetic dream, depicting the older Hector seen in The Binding Blade as well as his daughter Lilina and Eliwood's son Roy. That Roy "takes away" Lilina from Hector alludes to how Lilina is Roy's Implied Love Interest throughout The Binding Blade.
  • If that wasn't enough, Hector's death from wounds he sustained defending Araphen from Bern's army is also frequently foreshadowed in the later stages of the story, with the two biggest hints coming from the acquisition of the legendary weapon Armads ^note the spirit of its first wielder, Durban, warns Hector that "He who wields Armads shall die not peacefully, but in battle," a fate Hector accepts so that he can assist Eliwood in his battle against Nergal and the epilogue ^note where Hector invites Eliwood to Castle Ostia several years after the birth of their children to discuss the growing unrest in Bern; Hector promises to do everything in his power should his kingdom come under threat, even at the sacrifice of his life.
• Fuga: Melodies of Steel is a distant prequel to the rest of the Little Tail Bronx series, and makes a number of references to Solatorobo: Red the Hunter in particular:
  • Professor Burri, the antagonist of The Adventures of Sucre comic strip, sports a suspiciously similar appearance to Fool, the main antagonist of Tail Concerto. The story of "The Vanishing Key Arc" is centered around a medallion with a red dot in the center (albeit one connected to a pendant), sporting a similar design to the medallion key to Solatorobo's plot.
  • Some (but not all) of the areas the Taranis goes through are based off of locations in Solatorobo, with Vizsla, Shetland and Mau being particular examples. This isn't just referential, as those are the same locations as the ones in Solatorobo.
  • Malt and Socks' Link Events have the latter discuss the possibility of a bipedal tank, which will eventually become the DAHAK-AZI03 that his descendant Merveille will build and give to her son, Red.
  • Sheena's spell-casting powers strongly imply that her clan are the ancestors to the Paladin Clan from Solatorobo's backstory. Some of Sheena's chants when using her powers (such as "rinaru-sa" and "orly-loosa") match up with ones used by Elh in Solatorobo proper.
  • At one point, the children notice a sleeping giant in the background, with the Radio Woman saying that it's not yet time for it to awaken. It's Lares, a major antagonistic force in Solatorobo.
  • After Gasco is broken apart by the Vanargand, the remaining floating islands are eventually given a new name in honor of the children who saved the world: "Shepherd".
  • The Stinger for the Golden Ending shows Baion of Solatorobo, contemplating his plans some three hundred years before the events of that game. This is followed by the narrator alluding to "untold adventures yet to come" as the game ends on a still of Red's Trance form.
• God of War: Chains of Olympus:
  • Upon his defeat, Atlas warns Kratos that they will meet again.
  • Athena and Helios leave an unconscious Kratos at the very same cliffs where he will attempt suicide ten years later.
• Grand Theft Auto III featured an 80s hits station called Flashback 95.6, which was hosted by a woman named Toni. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which takes place in The '80s, has her hosting a pop station called "Flash." Some of the comments she makes on Flash are also Call-Forwards to some she makes on Flashback.
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity: When Master Kohga tries to steal the Thunder Helm from Riju, only to be foiled by Urbosa, he retorts that even if it takes him 100 years, he WILL have the Helm, which is exactly what happens in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
• After showing off his skills in car combat, a character in Interstate '76 (set in The '70s) says "Damn, I'm so good, they should name a car after me." His name? Taurus.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future: Polnareff, surprisingly, has a few references to Part 5 in him. His Level 3 super has a Stand Arrow fly out of nowhere and turn Silver Chariot into Chariot Requiem, putting the opponent to sleep while Polnareff remarks that he can "feel fate within the bow and arrow." (If you want to be technical, the Arrow could also reference Part 4, where it debuts.) Furthermore, one of his win quotes is "We'll meet again, in Italy."
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days: This being an Interquel, there are a few Call-Forwards to the next game in the chronology.
    • Axel telling Roxas about summer vacation, to which Roxas replies that he couldn't handle more than a week. Kingdom Hearts II begins with Roxas and his friends during their last week of summer vacation.
    • Roxas asks Axel "What's our boss's name?" when he's trying to make sure Axel knows what's going on. Later in Kingdom Hearts II, Axel asks Roxas this same question when trying to get Roxas to remember their friendship.
    • In Beast's Castle, Roxas explores the basement and finds a set of double-doors with statues carved into them. These statues later become a boss in KHII after Sora wakes up and explores Beast's Castle.
    • On day 224, Axel suggests to Roxas and Xion that they should go to the beach the next time they have a day off. Days ends with Roxas in the simulated Twilight Town running to meet the Twilight gang and wondering aloud if they can finally go to the beach, implying that, even with his memories erased, the desire to visit the ocean during the prologue of KHII was subconsciously left over from his time with Axel and Xion.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: This being a Prequel to the whole series, there are a few Call-Forwards to the original game.
    • Ven, who looks exactly like Roxas and therefore has some mysterious connection to Sora, says "My friends are my power!" which is something Sora shouts to Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, in Kingdom Hearts.
    • Xehanort has a similarly mysterious connection with Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, and he recites the "Darkness is the heart's true essence" speech from Kingdom Hearts after he possesses Terra's body.
    • In the secret ending, Terra says that Xehanort is going to get "shown the door." At the end of Kingdom Hearts, that's exactly what happens with Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, who is Xehanort with Laser-Guided Amnesia, when he opens the door to the titular MacGuffin Location, only for the outpouring of light to destroy him.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Missing Link: A book in the Monktown Valley library mentions how warriors can end up becoming stalfos when they die, which is exactly what happened to Link by the time of Twilight Princess.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny, which is set between Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, has Chrono musing about how Nanoha's a natural at testing prototype weapons and namedrops the currently-in-development Blaster System, an upgrade that would eventually serve as Nanoha's Super Mode in StrikerS.
• Mega Man:
  • Bass's ending in Mega Man: The Power Battle makes mention of Wily's ultimate robot; its sequel has him (after revealing on how Bass came to be before the events of Mega Man 7) actually show the plans to Bass, who snarks that it's girly-looking and will be a loser like all of Wily's other (non-Bass) robots. The player can, naturally, see Zero's silhouette.
  • It is no secret that Mega Man (Classic)'s storyline eventually leads into Mega Man X down the road. It's also no secret that in X, a virus is causing Reploids to go turn into Mavericks. Cue Mega Man 10's storyline...
  • In Mega Man X7, Zero has a dream where X shouts "Eliminate the Mavericks. The Mavericks...eliminate..." while trying to shoot Zero. Several hundred years later, it looks like Zero's nightmare came true.
• Metroid: Other M is a prequel to Fusion. Adam's initial, human form is seen here, as well as Nightmare. It also explains how Ridley ended up as a frozen husk on the BSL in Fusion — Ridley was actually Killed Off for Real in Super Metroid and the Federation accidentally cloned him. This clone was sucked dry by a Metroid Queen. The husk and Nightmare's body are missing in the Playable Epilogue, most likely being moved to the BSL.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King has some of this due to being a video game prequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas. Aside from the opening cutscene establishing that the story takes place long before Jack discovered Christmas, the ending cutscene has Sally first meet Jack and fall in love with him and Oogie Boogie swearing revenge against Jack, both of which foreshadow Sally's crush on Jack Skellington and Oogie's battle with Jack in the movie.
• In Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, Sharp-Dressed Man Akihiko notes that he likes the outfit that Phantom Mage Shadows wear, which is a long cape with a hood. This is a nod to his inexplicable shirtless cape attire in Persona 4: Arena, which takes place two years later. Him taking Kick Chick Chie under his wing is likewise a nod to their student/teacher-esque relationship in the Arena games.
  • Persona Q is chock-full of these, owing to a combination of Foregone Conclusion and Doomed by Canon. Ken's interactions with Kanji and shiftiness around Shinjiro hint at his intention to kill Shinjiro in Persona 3, and while Ken never goes through with it, Shinjiro barely has a month to live according to the chronology. Likewise, Elizabeth, the third game's Velvet Room attendant, can be picked as the Player Character's "destined partner" for the Group Date Cafe; if paired up with her game's protagonist, she can be prompted to tightly squeeze his hand when asking for advice on how they can act more like a couple, and Elizabeth will remark about her unease in letting his hand go. Those familiar with the events of P3 know this is referring to the MC's time-delayed death after his Heroic Sacrifice in the Final Battle. At one point, Margaret, Elizabeth's older sister, is about to tell Elizabeth about Elizabeth's departure from the Velvet Room, as recounted in P4 and P4A, but stops herself — Elizabeth and her companions hail from two years' before Margaret's time, so Margaret elects to not divulge details of the future to them.
• Pokémon:
  • Taking advantage of their status as remakes, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen add a few for Pokémon Gold and Silver.
  • Brock is mentioned to mine fossils in his spare time, hinting at how he adds fossil Pokémon Kabutops and Omastar in his team.
  • Misty hopes to go on a date at Cerulean Cape, like the one the player disturbs her at in the latter game.
  • Koga's daughter Janine appears as a character in Fuschia City, though the English version mistranslates her name as "Charine".
  • In Gold and Silver, the pond in Celadon City is polluted, so you can only find Grimer and Muk in it. In FireRed and LeafGreen, Grimer and Koffing were added as rare 1% chance encounters to that pond, foreshadowing its future state.
  • A kid in the Indigo Plateau mentions that Lance has a cousin who's a gym leader somewhere far away. Though it wouldn't be confirmed until later, this line is referring to Clair, the dragon-type gym leader of Johto.
  • A Team Rocket executive starts a new faction dedicated to forcing Pokémon to evolve, like the Lake of Rage plan. And when the scheme is thwarted and he learns that Giovanni has gone into hiding, said executive, Archer, vows to reform Team Rocket and bring him back.
  • Gideon, the Team Rocket scientist who stole the Sapphire, notes that Giovanni’s kid has red hair, a not-too-subtle nod to Silver from Gen II.
  • Finally, Lorelei of the Elite Four decides to retire to protect her home town, hinting at her absence from the sequels.
• In Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, Archer appears serval times throughout the game, and despite his final defeat in the post game, he vows to revive Team Rocket in the neighboring region of Johto in the hopes of bringing Giovanni back.
• Taken a step further in the fan remake of Quest for Glory; if you insist upon having the Dark Master as your mentor, you get a Nonstandard Game Over where the Wizards get so incensed that they teleport you to Mordavia, the setting of ''Quest for Glory IV (which reveals the Dark Master's identity), and your Have a Nice Death message mentions that you aren't strong enough to survive there.
  • The (official) remake of the first QFG just goes all out if you examine the Black Bird statue in the Brigand leader's office, which gives a message that says you can somehow sense your fate is tied to the bird and you'll see it again in future games. Naturally, the Black Bird (a parody of The Maltese Falcon) is featured in every subsequent game and forms a critical part of the Thief's storyline.
• Red Dead Redemption II has plenty for the first game:
  • At one point, John makes the exact same pose with a sawn-off shotgun as he does in the cover art of the original game. He's even missing his hat.
  • When John is holding Javier at gunpoint in the first game, he says the following: "Now, I ain't the judge, but as it turns out, it's you or me. The way I see it, might as well be you". In the prequel, Dutch says nearly the same thing after a shocked John calls him out for drowning Angelo Bronte and feeding his body to an alligator: "It ain't nice, I know it, but it is either us or him! I figure it might as well be him." This changes the context of the original line to John deliberately quoting Dutch.
    • Another case like this is at the end of the first game, where John tells Abigail and Jack to "run and don't look back" before Edgar Ross and his army kill him. That's pretty much inspired by Arthur when he urges John to take Abigail and Jack and leave the gang while they had a chance.
  • John's signature outfit is a gift to him from Abigail.
  • Much of the epilogue is spent on building and acquiring funding for the Marston ranch in Beecher's Hope.
  • Arthur's grave (at least on high honor) has an inscription of Matthew 5:6. Years later, John's will have an insciption of Matthew 5:9.
  • Much of the things the blind beggar tells Arthur are cryptic, but often end up becoming true. This also applies to John, to whom the old man tells about the first game's ending - not that John understands it.
  • One of the random conversations around camp is a 4 year old Jack wanting to be a gunslinger when he grows up, something both Hosea and Abigail themselves object to. He becomes this in the epilogue of the first game by his own volition.
  • Arthur also says this line to Charles on horseback at one point:
    Arthur: And, there ain't no way Dutch is gonna just... hide away in a cave somewhere.
• Resident Evil:
  • In the remake of the first Resident Evil, Wesker carries a note from William Birkin in which he describes how superior the G-virus is to the T-virus and how he is looking forward to putting Alexia in her place.
  • Most games in the series feature classic costumes of returning characters as unlockables. The remake of the first game instead has costumes for Chris and Jill that they wear in later games, with Jill getting her casual clothes from Resident Evil 3: Nemesis while Chris has his uniform from Resident Evil – Code: Veronica. The remaster released a decade later also added Chris and Jill's BSAA uniforms from Resident Evil 5.
  • The Nintendo 64 port of Resident Evil 2 added a bunch of extra files that referenced other games, including 3 and Code Veronica.
• Sam & Max: Freelance Police:
  • Episode 204, "Chariots of the Dogs" has you visit the office shortly into the future, at which point you exchange a remote control for an egg. You exchange the egg for the remote control in Episode 205.
  • Also from Episode 204: when the past Sam and Max (from Episode 102) confront their present selves:
    Past Sam: Max and I need to get to the Moon. How do we get there?
    Present Sam: Why don't you just drive there? ^note As they do in Episode 106.
    Past Sam: You can't just drive to the Moon, bonehead.
    Past Max: Sheesh, Sam... our future selves have no respect for plausibility.
• Anastasia in Shadow Hearts: Covenant notes that there might be trouble if her parents don't improve their relationship with their people. The Anastasia in question is Princess Anastasia Romanova. Covenant takes place in 1915. The only saving grace is that history in the Shadow Hearts universe is vastly different from ours, giving her at least a chance at not getting put against the wall in 1917...
• The 2013 mobile version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 adds a scene during the credits (after getting all the Chaos Emeralds) showing the Death Egg crashing onto Angel Island and Knuckles witnessing a hopping-mad Robotnik.
• In the VGA remake of Space Quest, the Time Pod from Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers lands as you leave Ulence Flats.
• Syndicate's reboot has quite a few. Amongst these are the co-op missions taking place in areas the original games used. The Western Europe map shown in the demo is broadly similar to the original's in having to kill a Colonel, although resistance is much stiffer here.
• In Transformers: Devastation, Teletran Alpha fortells to Optimus Prime and Wheeljack that while the Autobots will ultimately emerge victorious against the Decepticons, they won't live to see that day.
• Name the main character of Undertale Kris, and the game will note that that name sounds oddly familiar. Kris is the name of the main character of Deltarune.
• Unleash the Light:
  • The game chronologically takes place before Steven Universe: The Movie and has several references to it:
    • One of the charms Pearl, Bismuth and Connie can equip is the Gem Rejuvenator, Spinel's weapon of choice.
    • One of Amethyst's unlockable costumes is the form she had when she first emerged from the Prime Kindergarten. Likewise, one of Steven's is his outfit in that movie.
    • The skill that gives Greg's Heal Jam a 25% chance to cure his allies of negative Status Effects is called "Independent Together", Steg's song.
    • One of the anvil charms that Bismuth can equip is the Little Homeworld Anvil, a reference to the Gem village being built at the beginning of the movie.
    • The achievement for clearing all the Magical Missions in Rose's Room is called "Can't Believe We've Come So Far", one of the lyrics from "Happily Ever After".
  • The game also references Steven Universe: Future:
    • One of Steven's ukulele charms is the Future Uke, which is designed after his outfit in Steven Universe: Future.
      Is this ukulele from... the future?
    • The achievement for getting an A++ on any Black Hole chapter is called "Little Homeschool".
    • One of Greg's quotes on his equipment page is "Cut my hair? Never! No way! No how!" He then suffers a Traumatic Haircut from Bluebird in the latter's eponymous episode.
    • One of Bismuth's equippable armor charms is the Wedding Armor that she makes for Yellow Pearl in "Everything's Fine".
• A now-removed quest-chain in World of Warcraft has a character in Stormwind sarcastically utter the phrase "Next you're going to tell me that Deathwing is still alive and attacking the city." Guess what happened when the Cataclysm expansion was released...

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney:
  • In Trials and Tribulations, the first case is a prequel, and it features normally-bald prosecutor Winston Payne with hair and a tougher attitude: he loses both when you win and becomes more like himself from the previous games.
  • There's an interesting example of this in the third case of Investigations: Examining the stage area after it's been reconstructed by Little Thief will show a Gavinner's symbol (the stylized "G"), and examining the sign next to the stage advertises not only the concert, but also a "battle of magic" between Max Galactica and Troupe Gramarye. The first is especially interesting, because in the flashback case in Apollo Justice, Klavier mentions that his band recently got popular.
  • The fourth case of Investigations is practically made of this, due to being a flashback to four years before the beginning of the series. References range from Miles commenting on the fire extinguisher used to clonk Phoenix over the head in 2-1 to more serious matters such as the crimes and execution of Manfred von Karma. It turns to Tearjerker when Franziska mentions that she can't imagine what she'd do if her father died.
  • The DS remake of the first game added a fifth case, which included references to the Phoenix Wright games that had been released by then. For example, if you checked around the evidence storage room, you'd find the bug sweeper that Phoenix would eventually use in Justice for All, complete with Gumshoe noting that it might become useful in the future.
• Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind ends with the Utsugi Detective Agency receiving a phone call from Zenzou Tanabe of Myojin Village who asks to meet with them in person, leading into the events of The Missing Heir.
• Zero Time Dilemma:
  • In a certain timeline you have to play the AB game. This was a central premise of Virtue's Last Reward, which takes place 45 years later.
  • The usage of the SHIFT ability to travel between timelines is the whole purpose of Virtue's Last Reward, and it happens in this game for the first time.
  • One of the passwords for Junpei is "Quark", the kid he raised some decades later in the timeline. He isn't even born yet in this game.
  • When Sigma asks Phi to go into the air duct in one D-Team fragment, she claims she doesn't fit because of her D-cup breasts. Sigma reminds her that she said they were a C back (or forward) in Virtue's Last Reward. And it still is a lie.
  • While not in the same timeline, in the ending path where Diana and Sigma are trapped in the shelter, at one point, Diana discusses Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird over her blue bird music box, heavy echoing a similar conversation Luna and Sigma had in Virtue's Last Reward. However, Sigma interprets the original novel's ending of the blue bird flying away much more pessimistically in contrast to the much more optimistic approach Luna does.

Web Animation

• Before Gelatin is eliminated from Battle for Dream Island Again, he asks Puffball Speaker Box to keep his elimination a secret from the Announcer, because he finds him scary. Fast forward to Battle for BFB (which ended its run before Gelatin was eliminated from BFDIA), and the Announcer mentions that Gelatin was never eliminated from BFDI, which was true when he said that, but is now no longer true.
  • In an earlier episode of BFDIA, Yellow Face confronts his rival Purple Face and locks him up inside a sealed box. That same sealed box with Purple Face inside shows up again in BFB (which, again, ended its run before Yellow Face's confrontation with Purple Face).

Webcomics

• The webcomic version of The Beginning After the End has a few of these towards later events in the novel.
  • In an original scene, Arthur and Claire end up meeting the Lances Alea and Bairon, characters who would not be named until much later in the novel, when they go to report to Director Goodsky about Arthur's altercation with Marcois. After the meeting's conclusion, Alea remarks to Arthur that "Maybe we'll run into each other again" before the Lances leave. The next time Arthur runs into her in the webcomic (or rather, the first time he does in the novel), it's when he finds her dying in Widow's Crypt after she and her team were slaughtered by the Vritra Retainer Uto. In addition, Alea also tells Arthur that she's "definitely the weakest among the Lances", which alludes to the fact that she does not get any major fight scenes during her brief time in the novel.
  • At one point, Elijah tells Arthur that he joined the Chain Casting Research Club to pick up girls, to which Arthur replies "Were you deprived of love in your past life or something?" While this seems to be an innocuous remark at the time considering how unlucky Elijah is compared to Arthur when it comes to attracting love, anyone who has read the novel will recognize that not only is this really true of Elijah, but of Arthur as well. In their past lives, Grey (Arthur) and Nico (Elijah) had a childhood friend named Cecilia whom they both loved. However, Cecilia died by throwing herself onto Grey's blade during a major tournament, which led Nico (who was going to get married to Cecilia) to swear revenge on Grey, a vendetta that would continue all the way into their reincarnated lives.
  • Shortly after that, the webcomic also throws in a Chekhov's Lecture from Professor Avius regarding the death of Marcois. In said lecture, Avius informs his students about the dangers of overexerting one's mana core, warning that enough stress can cause permanent damage if not outright death. At the end of the War Arc, Arthur ends up damaging his mana core beyond recovery after being forced to overexert his powers during the climactic battle, and he only ends up surviving due to Sylvie's Heroic Sacrifice to keep his body from tearing itself apart.
  • Speaking of Nico and how he represents Arthur's past life coming back to haunt him, said plot twist gets foreshadowed in an original scene that occurs before the Class Trip to Widow's Crypt. In said scene, Arthur and Elijah are sparring in the former's private training facility when the former knocks out the latter. As Arthur reaches out to help him up, Elijah is able to recognize Arthur as his past self King Grey, followed by him being overwhelmed with violent emotions towards Grey. In this moment, Elijah's emotions have come into conflict with those of Nico, his true self. Nico as a character and the reveal he had been reincarnated as Elijah would not be revealed until the start and end of the War Arc respectively, which occurs much later in the novel.
  • During Arthur's training in Epheotus, there is a brief montage showing what his friends are doing back in Dicathen to prepare for the coming war. One of the shots in the montage is that of the surviving Disciplinary Committee members visiting Claire, who was last seen having been Impaled with Extreme Prejudice during the attack on Xyrus. Claire's survival would not be revealed until the War Arc, when Arthur learns from Vanesy Glory about what happened following the attack.
• Cirque Royale: The Unicorn Princess, Valeria MajestyMoon, is seen in a tween magazine Princess Beat just below Claudette where she's mentioned as a Princess to Watch in "No New Friends." She doesn't debut properly until "Date Night."
• A common source of humor in Darths & Droids, as it is an alternate take on the Star Wars universe; for instance, when Anakin and Chancellor Palpatine have just fallen down an elevator shaft, the Chancellor quips, "This is fun. Perhaps I'll install a huge bottomless pit in my quarters for no apparent reason." Considering how the Canon Palpatine meets his end...
• The Greenhouse: The flashback chapters show us that Avery was a student version of Non-Giving-Up School Guy, doing everything in her power to keep Mica on campus (up to and including tackling her out of a tree) and encouraging her to actually do her schoolwork, so Mica wouldn't get in trouble with the teachers. Cute, even wholesome, and probably exactly what Mica needed to get her life back on track. But with the benefit of foresight, this was obviously an early sign of Avery's controlling personality, her need to have the people she liked doing things her way and only her way. She goes on to sabotage Mica's only other friend and her family, culminating in burning down their restaurant and framing Mica for it, so that Mica will have no one to spend time with, no one to rely on, besides herself. And while that has been her most serious crime so far, it was by no means her last.
• Gunnerkrigg Court: In Chapter 3, Antimony defends her friend Kat from a bully by Judo-flipping him. One of the teachers, Mr. Eglamore, tells Annie that was against the rules, and then he compliments her throw and tells her that it was noble to stand up for her friend. In Chapter 22, a Whole Episode Flashback shows the young Eglamore getting into a fight in defense of his friends, and receiving a similar warning and compliment from Mr. Thorn.
• The 20th anniversary week of Kevin & Kell had a series of flashbacks to twenty years ago for the characters (which, due to Comic-Book Time and Webcomic Time, was over a decade before the first strip). One strip has Kell's dad is bemoaning that he's been passed over for promotion, and this is the last chance of a Dewclaw ever becoming CEO of Herdthinners (since clearly Ralph isn't going to manage it). In the regular strips, Kell had already become CEO, quit, and was now running her own business.
• Since it's set as a prequel to Metal Gear Solid, The Last Days of FOXHOUND has these a few times. Vulcan Raven even does it in character, since he can see a limited amount of the future, and teases Ocelot on whether or not his hand will get chopped off.
• Roommates has some pages (like this) dedicated to the childhood of Jareth and the whole thing is this for Labyrinth, when it isn't Foreshadowing the comic. On the linked page his mother uses the same monologue that becomes his undoing and small Jareth says the words that "will" become the title song.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: In the Chapter 15 flash-back, Ensi is shown preventing a young Lalli from touching her rifle. One of the few things revealed by All There in the Manual about Ensi before that flash-back is that Lalli's rifle used to belong to her.
• The Order of the Stick: When Eugene Greenhilt meets the Oracle of Sunken Valley in the prequel book Start of Darkness, he calls Eugene Ghost Dad. When Eugene expresses confusion over this, the Oracle comments it'll be funnier later. In the present day, Eugene is the Spirit Advisor and father of The Hero.

Web Video

• Critical Role: Exandria Unlimited: Calamity: The continent of Domunas, which the story takes place on, is repeatedly referred to as "the smile of Exandria." Domunas was destroyed in the first moments of the Calamity, and in the modern day, all that remains of the continent is an island chain called the Shattered Teeth.

Western Animation

• The Amazing World of Gumball: Gumball does not normally wear shoes, but in "The Origins", he wears the same type of shoes that Darwin always wears. Once Darwin joins the Watterson family at the end of the episode, his feet are worn out from running around barefoot, so Gumball gives him his shoes.
• In the non-canon American Dad! episode "Rapture's Delight", Stan is left on a post-Rapture Earth in the future and fights the Antichrist to get into Heaven. Two seasons later, in "Season's Beatings", Stan fights the Antichrist as a child in the present, then at the end of the episode when they get rid of him by giving him to Sarah Palin, he warns Stan that he'll see him again when the Rapture comes.
• This is done in Biker Mice from Mars in the flashback sequences of the three-part episode "Once Upon a Time on Mars", which depicted Throttle, Vinnie, and Modo fighting back against the Plutarkians before they left Mars and ended up on Earth at the beginning of the series. When Limburger and Karbunkle search a monitor for villains with the intent of hiring one to help them take over Mars, the villains shown on the monitor consist of foes that the Biker Mice would later battle, including the Pit Boss and Evil Eye Weevil. Another example occurs when Limburger is crushed by the collapsing of Dominic T. Stilton's fortress and comments that such a thing can get very annoying after a while, referencing the show's Running Gag of Limburger Plaza being destroyed at the end of every episode.
• In the Code Lyoko prequel episode "XANA Awakens":
  • In the near end of this two-parter, Odd remarks that "Sissi is going to give them a lot of grief."
  • Jim makes a mocking remark about a giant teddy bear. One shows up in the first episode of the series.
• DC Animated Universe:
  • In Batman: The Animated Series's episode Zatanna, Zatara and Zatanna are training the young "John Smith" in escape artistry.
    Zatanna: Pick a card and I'll tell you your future. Mm, I see intrigue, danger, mystery. Two of hearts?
    "John": Joker.
  • In one episode of Justice League, Batman has a brief bout of Teleportation Sickness after travelling via Boom Tube (most of the guys we see using them in the DCAU are Physical Gods.) In the Batman Beyond story that in some ways led to the League cartoon, Old! Bruce mentioned that he never liked using them.
• One episode of Dragons: Race to the Edge has Ruffnut comment that she's never witnessed two boys competing for the same girl, a nod to how How to Train Your Dragon 2 featured both Snotlout and Fishlegs trying to win her over.
  • The Grand Finale "King of Dragons" also gives plenty for the second film. Drago has a scene indicating that he does not yet possess a Bewilderbeast (which he was paying Krogan to find), the Wingmaidens are shown to know Valka (whom they leave the Bewilderbeast egg with; she remains masked, though), the team leaves the Edge and destroys the Dragon Eye, and Fishlegs and Snotlout start arguing for Ruffnutt's affections. Hiccup also never actually sees the Bewilderbeast (to comply with him not recognizing it when he sees the one Valka was given) and says that he expects that his father will try to hand the reins of chief to him "very soon", foreshadowing his death.
• Family Guy:
  • In the episode where Peter tells Death how he is devoted to Lois, Quagmire mentions how he hopes Peter will find her again. Peter responds that he hopes Quagmire lives next door to him someday.
  • At the end of "Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure", Meg calls forward on her transition to a male in the future by learning that a boy she was courting at the public pool was named Ron, and then commenting on how she always liked that name.
• Gravity Falls has a pretty strong continuity, so it's pretty common to see these whenever the story goes into the past, either by Time Travel or flashback;
  • In "The Time Traveler's Pig", Dipper and Mabel end up on a wagon for Oregon settlers, and someone yells, "By Trembly!" In "Irrational Treasure" Quentin Trembly was revealed to be not just the town founder, but one-time president as well. When they run by the future Mystery Shack in the past, a man who looks like Stan opens the door to see what just came by.
  • In "Blendin's Game", when Dipper and Mabel time-travel ten years into the past, there are plenty tucked away into the background. At the Mystery Shack, Stan is heard showing off a set of wax statues he got ("Headhunters"), Soos is getting a keyboard with sound effects, ("Headhunters", "Double Dipper"), and most tellingly, an ad for Bud Gleeful's car lot shows Bud having a "Just Had a Baby Sale" ("The Hand That Rocks the Mabel").
  • "A Tale Of Two Stans", being Stan's Backstory, is full of these. When Stan punches through wooden boards, he's impressed by the number of splinters in his hands, just like Mabel when she first comes to the Mystery Shack ("Tourist Trapped"). The boat Stan wants to fix up is named the Stan o' War ("Legend of the Gobblewonker"). A young Fiddleford McGucket get briefly sucked into the portal and decides he wants to forget what he saw ("Society of the Blind Eye"). We also see what happened to Lazy Susan's eye and where Tyler Cutebiker's catchphrase comes from.
• Occurred in Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi in the Origins Episode "Secret Origin", where Ami as a child states that she loves riding on the bus and hopes that she and Yumi will ride on the bus every day when they're older. It so happens that in the present day, Ami and Yumi travel in a tour bus as rock stars.
• One of the flashbacks shown in the Jem episode "Out of the Past" shows Jerrica and Kimber Benton's mother Jacqui telling them of how she enjoys sharing home with foster children and hopes for her daughters to be the same, which foreshadows Jerrica, Kimber, and their foster sisters Aja and Shana running the Starlight House and looking after the foster girls after Jerrica and Kimber's parents die.
• The SpongeBob SquarePants spin-off, Kamp Koral, which serves as a prequel to the original series, has these sometimes. For example, Plankton works as a chef in the Krusty Kanteen to save money for college. Guess what the character's second words in the main show are?
• Kim Possible has a few of these in "A Sitch in Time", when Drakken and Kim travel back in time to the latter's past:
  • Pre-K Kim is first seen hugging her mother's Visible Pregnancy and referring to it as her "new baby sister". Her mother then correctly guesses it could be a boy, but recoils at her husband suggesting it could be twins. Of course, she ends up giving birth to Tim and Jim the Tweebs.
  • Pre-K Ron, when stuck in a pickle, calls upon help from Rufus... his ten foot tall imaginary friend. In the middle school segments, he comments that his dad won't let him get a pet due to his fur allergy, explaining his eventual choice of a Naked Mole Rat.
  • After getting onto the cheerleading team, Kim is forced to leave by a call, calling out "I promise I'll never skip practice again".
• Muppet Babies (1984) had some instances of alluding to what would become of the Muppet children when they reached adulthood.
  • Animal is occasionally shown playing drums and stating how much he likes the drums, a nod to how he'll grow up to be the drummer of Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
  • "When You Wish Upon a Muppet" ends with Kermit wishing that he and his friends would make movies together once they grew up and even shows a clip from The Great Muppet Caper.
• Ninjago: In "Lost in Time", the Elemental Master of Lightning mentions she's got a honeymoon with an actor named Cliff. In the previous season, Jay's biological father was revealed to be Cliff Gordon, the actor who played Fritz Donnegan.
• In the Over the Garden Wall episode "Schooltown Follies", Greg teaches some kids to play "Two Old Cat" as a scavenger hunt for two old cats. In a flashback in "Into the Unknown", Greg and Wirt pass two kids talking about a stick and ball game called "Two Old Cat" without explaining the rules, explaining where Greg got the idea.
• Phineas and Ferb: In "Gaming the System", Doofenshmirtz recalls a backstory where his mother is expecting a baby girl, but the baby turns out to be a boy instead. The boy she gives birth to is Roger.
• In an episode of Phantom 2040 showing Doctor Jak and Mister Cairo's backstories, we see that Jak was once a serious reporter who was critical of the downward trend of journalism, and objected to his superiors' constant demand to make his show more sensational.
• Razzberry Jazzberry Jam: In "Join The Jam" (a Whole Episode Flashback), Xavier from "Melody Makers" can be seen as part of the montage of rejected auditionees.
• The Simpsons:
  • One episode features a flashback to Grampa's time in World War II. When Burns suggests stealing some Nazi paintings, Grampa rationalizes it by saying he needs to put away some money for retirement, after all he'd hate to be put in one of those homes...
  • In the flashback episode "I Married Marge", after Homer is first hired by Mr. Burns to work at the power plant, Burns comments to Smithers: "Simpson, eh? I'll remember that name."
  • In "The Way We Was", Homer's guidance counselor suggests Homer work at the newly-opened nuclear power plant. Homer laughs the idea off.
• Skull Island, a prequel series based on the MonsterVerse, has a couple references in Episode 7 to events in past MonsterVerse movies that are chronologically set after the series' time frame:
  • The Island Girl muses on the idea that people from the outside world could create machine versions of existing individuals including Kong, and that the machine Kong could perform his duties for him. Though the Island Girl's vision of it is a lot more idyllic and less sinister, this otherwise sounds a lot like what Apex Cybernetics tried to do in Godzilla vs. Kong with Godzilla: making Mechagodzilla to replace him as the reigning global Alpha Titan. This is also a Mythology Gag to Mechani-Kong, who was the original inspiration for Mechagodzilla.
  • The Hawk, who is already a Suspiciously Similar Substitute of Rodan, references Rodan's role in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) while fighting one of the giant chameleons. Harassed by the chameleon, the Hawk directs a Death Glare at it and then performs an aileron roll which takes it out of the fight, exactly like what Rodan did against the Gold Squadron jets.
• Steven Universe occasionally has these in its flashback episodes.
  • "The Answer": Ruby and Sapphire hum a song that sounds very similar to "Stronger Than You", a song sung in the present in "Jail Break".
  • "Now We're Only Falling Apart": When Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond and Pearl are in the Prime Kindergarten for the first time, they run into a unit of Amethyst soldiers who are waiting for the last two members of their unit to emerge. One of them does, but the Amethysts are forced to leave before "8XM", the bottom-most one, can emerge, saying that she'll just have to catch up. That Amethyst is the Crystal Gem Amethyst, who ended up emerging from the ground centuries late, and would eventually "catch up" to her sisters in "That Will Be All".
• The Teen Titans episode "Go!" is practically made up of these. Notable ones include Cyborg saying "I'm only gonna say this once — Booya!" and the team stopping by an island (that of course will eventually house their headquarters) and Cyborg comments that "somebody should build a house out here."
• The audition tapes for Season 4 of Total Drama are chock full of this.
  • Dakota says that she'll be the biggest thing around.
  • Mike is shown to have won a skating award, has a photo of Ayers Rock on his mantle, mentions that he can be scrappy if needed and inadvertently lets slip that he's seeing a psychiatrist, All hinting at his Multiple Personality Disorder.
  • Scott's audition consists of him crushing rats to death, alluding to his Team Killer status for the Toxic Rats.
  • Zoey's mentions that her worst fear is getting voted off by a jock, Her fate at the hands of Lightning.

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