Fate stay night/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Accidental Innuendo
    • "I've shown you mine, so the least you can do is show me yours" and "I am the bone of my sword."
    • Saber once tells Shirou "you've entered me so many times"... referring, of course, to the fact that he's entered her memories.
    • Another good one from Saber, to Shirou: "You were my sheath." She's discussing the fact that he's a vessel for Excalibur's sheath Avalon, buuuuut...
    • Lancer's Gae Bolg...or, if you prefer, his "Gay Bulge"
  • Alas, Poor Villain:
    • Depending on route (and adaptation), you're exposed to different sides - and aspects - of certain characters.
    • Anime (2004): Berserker, Caster, Kuzuki, and Gilgamesh.
    • Unlimited Blade Works: Caster & Kuzuki; Ilya & Berserker.
    • Heaven's Feel: Kirei Kotomine. Attempted with Zouken Matou, but very few (if any) people bought it.
  • Anticlimax Boss - Caster in Fate, Rider in Unlimited Blade Works, Rider's first fight, both of Caster's fights, Sasaki Kojirou, AKA Fake Assassin, normal Berserker and Gilgamesh in Heaven's Feel.
  • Complete Monster -
    • Zouken Matou. Just look what this scumbag does to poor Sakura. Also, he's partially to blame for Shinji being the asshole he is. Plus he has also killed many thousands of innocent people in order to remain alive, and is willing to risk destroying the whole town, or maybe even the entire world, to obtain his goal.
    • Gilgamesh, ironically named the "King of Heroes". After manipulating Kirei Kotomina in Fate/Zero into embracing his villainy he abandons any redeeming qualities and decides that humanity had grown "without purpose" and intends to use the grail to destroy most of the world so he may rule over the survivors. Brutally murdering Illya in Unlimited Blade Works before painfully turning Shinji into a host for the Grail, everything a hero shouldn't be, Gilgamesh is a sadistic hedonist defined by his ego and sense of entitlement to the fate of the world itself.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome - Has its own page.
  • Deconstruction Fic - I Put On My Robe and Wizard Hat is one example.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Gilgamesh can sometimes fall into this, with the fanon portrayals of him that tone down his Jerkass qualities considerably and put him into a much more positive light, in addition to some who ignore that he quite frankly wants to rape Saber, doesn't care about her consent and seems to even prefer her resistance. At times, his Attempted Rape of Saber is explained away by being purely attempted and not being something that succeeded, yet despite that, Shinji is strung up by the fandom for the same action. [1] One must note that in both the original myth and the game Enkidu originally fought him due to him invoking Droit de seigneur, or the lord's right to a bride's virginity, where the consent of the woman didn't matter, and Values Dissonance can't be invoked with this because even in the original myth people thought he was going too far.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple
    • Archer/Rin and Rider/Sakura, anyone?
    • Rin/Saber. Though that's kind of canon in one ending.
  • Fridge Horror: What might have happened if Lancer were summoned as The Berserker instead, which would give him the "Warp Spasm" as one of his skills.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment
    • The "I am the bone of my sword" invocation/chant for the Unlimited Blade Works reality marble isn't given much weight or attention, and only seems to be there for the Rule of Cool. Until the Heaven's Feel route, that is, where its meaning becomes painfully clear after Shirou uses Archer's arm for projection, catapulting him past his limits and resulting in an eventual rebound that reforges his body into thousands of swords, killing him from the inside out. "I am the bone of my sword" indeed... To expand on this: At one point in Unlimited Blade Works, Archer tells Shiro and Saber that he lost his arm the first time he used a projection, which seems to be a lie as Shirou is able to perform projection and still manages to keep both arms throughout both Fate and UBW. But then in Heaven's Feel, Shirou has one of his arms blown off. Archer voluntarily has one of his arms grafted to Shirou, and "losing his arm" at this point enables Shirou to perform Projection for the first time not long after.
    • Also, Sakura's jealousy. Cute? A funny little argument with Rider about Shirou finding her attractive? Not so much after killing Shinji, going berserk and hitting you with the worst bad ends of the game plus her Villainous Breakdown against Tohsaka at the end, where it's also revealed that no, Sakura did not pick up the little cues that Tohsaka really did care about her all along.
    • This also makes Unlimited Blade Works somewhat uncomfortable, when it's revealed how much Sakura didn't want to lose Shirou to Tohsaka.
    • Remember the humorous scenes you can get if you nag Saber for "a super move that can defeat a Servant" during training? In one ending of Heaven's Feel, Shirou actually wins against Saber Alter... by using Archer's super move with Kanshou and Bakuya against her. Though maybe it's just Hilarious in Hindsight, since that ending is actually really, really awesome.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight - Shirou is a somewhat dim man with red hair who is obsessed with swords. Sound familiar?
    • In the Fate route, Rin half-jokingly speculates that Archer must have been a skirt chaser back when he was alive. Then comes UBW and we discover who he is. Suffice to say, he didn't chase skirts as much as he was chased by skirts.
    • In the Tiger Dojo #21, Ilya says to Taiga that she (and Rin) are the only characters with enough age to be Magical Girls. A few years later... hello, Kaleido Ruby and Prisma Ilya.
  • Holy Shit Quotient: Very, very high. Alternate title for Fate/stay night - Holy Shit Quotient: The Game
  • Magnificent Bastard - Kotomine
  • Memetic Mutation
    • The aforementioned "People die if they are killed" became a popular meme due to this YTMND.
    • ...you lost me.[2]
    • You take your pOnOs, and my vagOOO, and...J-J-JAM IT IN![3]
    • Being Lancer is suffering.[4]
    • GAR [5]
  • Misblamed: As noted in the Complete Materials, Nasu didn't actually write the infamously bad sex scenes in this or any other Type-Moon game. Hasn't stopped 'Nasu can't write sex' from approaching Memetic Mutation levels - that may, admittedly, be true, but we can't say for sure without any evidence.
  • Moe - Sakura. Oh my god. If Heaven's Feel does not break your heart in to a thousand tiny, tiny pieces that are also somehow on fire... no. Just, no.
  • Moral Event Horizon
    • Shinji starts out as a Jerkass, but crosses the line fairly early by trying to kill off the entire school to power up his servant, and we find out in Heaven's Feel that he's raped his sister many, many times before the story begins.
    • Heaven's Feel:
    • Shirou's Bad End where he pragmatically allows Sakura to die to save many people, considering everyone's reactions, might be an In-Universe example.
    • Sakura does not cross this, despite killing and devouring hundreds of people, because she does so entirely subconsciously and is unaware that she is doing it. However, when her dark side rapes Rin in the last Bad End, even Shirou (who has sacrificed everything for her) realises that she's too far gone to be saved.
    • Dark Sakura in Fate/unlimited codes crosses this by keeping Bazet alive just so she can watch her suffer.
    • Even if Gilgamesh was helping the Big Bad in Fate, he crosses this in Unlimited Blade Works by ripping out Ilya's heart, to say nothing of how he got to that point.
    • Shinji carries some of the responsibility for Gil's actions as well.
  • MST3K Mantra - This is essential for any of the hardcore fans who are addicted to the intricacies of canon to enjoy the movie at all. Never mind the complete excising of Shirou and Rin's opposition, for instance, just focus on the epic action scenes.
  • Nightmare Fuel - Has its own page...
  • Player Punch
    • Heaven's Feel has six simple words: "Save Saber"/"Bring the knife down." Guess which one is the right choice.
    • Heaven's Feel is basically one long barrage of Player Punches.
    • The Good Times Montage and the music that accompanies that particular scene makes it hurt even more. Way to twist the knife there, Nasu.
      • In UBW, Ilya's death might not have carried as much weight were it not for the fact that you have to play through Fate first (where you befriend her), and watch a particularly heart-rending interlude first.
  • Tear Jerker - So many it's almost cruel; Nasu just got malicious towards the reader with some of them. And don't even start on some of the endings...
  • Too Dumb to Live - Shirou in many cases, combined with Stupidity Is the Only Option to really rub it in your face.
  • Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny - With various mythology the world over.
  • Values Dissonance - At one point, it is revealed that Rider feels insecure about being too tall for a girl. This is an issue that a lot of real life girls can relate to... Except for the fact that Rider is only 172cm tall, which depending on where you live, could be considered as rather short. More than value differences, it shows the differences in height standards between different societies.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome - The Movie, Unlimited Blade Works, is beautiful. Seriously, it's like a 1 hour, 45 minute eye orgasm.
  • The Woobie - Practically every character in the game is this, to some extent. Even the Complete Monsters would have a case, were they not Complete Monsters... However, Sakura stands out as the worst case, by some distance in the original game.
  1. Of course, he is (quite rightly) strung up not just for that particular attempt but for his other actions, including successful rape; but this comparison does apply.
  2. A riff on Shiro's pathetic lack of knowledge concerning sex and all the women who want to have it with him.
  3. Saber explaining to Shiro how Servant-Master mana transfer works in a comedic erotic doujin.
  4. A reference to the "Being meguca is suffering" meme from Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the fact that neither Cu Chulainn nor Diarmuid met happy ends in both life and Servanthood.
  5. Came from a post on 4Chan where someone remarked that he was "gay for Archer" because of his badassery, only to misspell it as "GAR" instead, and it took off from there.