- In The Calvinverse, we have Bob, Retro's Cowardly Sidekick who first appeared in Trouble Island and gets a much larger role in Retro Chill, where he's shown to be an adorable Shrinking Violet who later turns to the heroes' side after seeing how badly Retro and his companions treated him. Oddly, after this he ends up being forgotten, despite being a fairly interesting character.
- Inquerius seems to have disappeared completely after the first story in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic. Explained in the DeviantArt version that she retired after the end of Season 1.
- Monsters In Paradise: Silently lampshaded by Reimu as regards Genji. She notes that she hadn't seen him since before the Scarlet Mist incident, on account of her learning how to fly, and that she'd figured that he probably died of old age before the present time.
- Ava from Infinity Crisis is not shown joining the other heroes when they travel to confront Thanos, and it is never explicitly stated why she isn't with the others.
- In Troll Fic Face The Strange, Dally's Girl Posse and Draco completely vanish from the story right around the introduction of Lupin and Tonks.
- The Story to End All Stories deconstructs this. The true villain of the story is Chuck Cunningham, and wants to spite everyone else because he is forgotten.
- Kara of Rokyn: Jara, whose rivalry with the main character had driven the first story arc's plot forward, disappears after the end of "Pain and Jasmine", and she only makes two cameo appearances at the end of the story, twenty chapters later.
- The Darker Knight: After Chapter 6, Tom Anderson goes to the hospital and isn't heard from again after that.
- Shinra High SOLDIER: We are introduced to two of Hojo's assistants, one of whom has feelings for him... and we never see them again.
- Basically applies to Gilderoy Lockhart in the Adam Winters series; rather than being taken down into the Chamber by Harry and Ron and accidentally hitting himself with his own Memory Charm, Lockhart just runs away after Ginny and Adam are taken into the Chamber and is never seen again.
- One of the goals of Kirby Of The Stars The After Story is to avert this trope for major characters that had this happen to them in the games.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Living The Dream
- Early on Zane goes off an adventure to search for someone important to him, but he disappears with his arc unresolved.
- Louie the brony dog first appears in chapter 8 as a competitor for Twilight's love. When that fails he hooks up with Winona and vanishes from the story.
- Louie's Pups Weedy, Churchill, and Leonardo are also this trope. They were the pets of Greg, Lance, and David, but quickly fade into obscurity. They do get a brief Cameo in the chapter "Suprise!" though.
- In Pony POV Series, Shining Armor had a squad of loyal and effective soldiers called Misfit Actual. They stop being mentioned in the Finale Arc, because the author had a falling out with their creator.
- The Pokémon Squad:
- Cameron the Photographer was a frequent Running Gag during the Sailor Pikachu-era episodes. His modern appearances, if they even exist, can be counted on one hand.
- By proxy, this trope also applies to Paul the Three-Eyed Monkey.
- The Penguins were Put on a Bus, but they are no longer mentioned, either, placing them here. The "RM's Friend" type characters met a similar fate (RM's Friend himself managed to last until "Barney Goes to the Unemployment Line", while the other three stopped being mentioned in "Sailor Pikachu's Goodbye", the same episode the penguins disappeared). Sailor Pikachu still makes occasional cameos, averting this trope.
- Out of the Yaois, Harley and Drew seem to never make appearances these days, after Barney, Rudy and Snap started taking up a lot of screentime.
- Defied with Bert and Ernie. While they haven't had a single episode revolve around them (not even their debut episode), they get one or two lines in the occasional episode, presumably to avoid falling into this trope.
- Henry and June managed to avert this trope no less than three times, as explained in the 200th Episode. First, RM was considering getting rid of them because Sailor Pikachu left (and the characters were more tied to her than to RM; RM himself didn't particularly like the show). Then, Sailor Pikachu herself lost interest in KaBlam!, effectively making them pointless as characters. The third time was when RM was pruning any character not related to Pokémon (in order for the fanfic's title to make more sense); while that's the reason The Penguins of Madagascar were removed, the pruning didn't last long and Henry and June continue to be important characters to this day.
- Cameron the Photographer was a frequent Running Gag during the Sailor Pikachu-era episodes. His modern appearances, if they even exist, can be counted on one hand.
- Averted in Slayers Trilogy with Naga, who shows up early on and plays an important role in the story, but played straight with Syphiel and Filia, who aren't even mentioned.
- Life at Pizza Hut: Shadow, one of the main characters of the fanfic, appears much less during the later chapters. Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts barely appear as much as they used too as well.
- In Prison Island Break, numerous unnecessary but otherwise interesting characters have died rather awesomely. But the author regretted the presence of Nate Morgan so much that she didn't even give him a last-day-on-the-job scene. Anybody remember Nate Morgan? Of course not.