Steins;Gate/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • From Kurisu's perspective, you're stood there minding your own business waiting for your lecture to begin, when some guy in a lab coat walks up to you, starts ranting about he saw you dead moments ago, then he starts grabbing your hair, prodding your cheeks, and poking around in your jacket (around the chest area no less), checking for stab wounds. Considering she's still a fairly young girl, the terrified look on her face is more than justified.
  • Moeka herself gives off some pretty eerie vibes even just a few episodes in; she is for the most part emotionless, very quiet, speaks in fragmented sentences, can appear before you suddenly, gets defensive if you try to snatch her phone from her hands, and will snap pics without your consent. Even just close-ups of her blank, lifeless eyes are rather unsettling. Is it any wonder why Okarin wanted Kurisu to watch over her?
  • Jellyman report, with pictures of jellified humans who were used as experiments for a time machine.
    • What about JELLIFIED MAYURI?!
  • Let's not forget the threatening email SERN sent to Okabe, complete with a picture of a severed, bloody head. All of this from a research organization too.
  • The letter written by the suicidal Suzuha was particularly haunting. Her constantly writing "I failed" and the revelation that she became mentally unstable after 25 years of bliss are enough to induce nightmares.
  • In Suzuha's ending, Okabe starts going through a severe case of Sanity Slippage from repeating the same two days so many times that he had lost count (likely in the thousands). He is so far gone at that point that he gets snippy with Kurisu with no playfulness about it. He begins to develop dark thoughts in his mind, such as pushing Daru out in front of a passing truck or, worse yet, he considers raping Suzuha because the time loop would reset anyway, so he couldn't be held accountable for said actions since they won't have happened. Thank God Suzuha was there to snap him out of it!
    • Three short sentences appearing on the screen: "Do her. Kill her. Rape her!" Those last two though? They flash up in big red letters!
  • In Episode 17, Faris is being pursued by a gang of thugs after beating them in a RaiNet match. The VN gives a better understanding of what these guys are like, but regardless, imagine what they would've done with Faris if either A) Okabe wasn't there to help, or B) her dad hadn't showed up. She could've been beaten, killed, or any other unspeakable acts which we will avoid mentioning.
  • Episode 23: The fact that Dr. Nakabachi hates his daughter so much that he was willing to steal her work, beat her, and even murder her, purely out of envy is horrific.
  • The mere thought of transporting memories into the past to alter the timeline is a scary thought in some ways. Especially when it has the potential to mess up your memory bank so much to were it can cause you to blip out of existence at any point.
    • In fact, this is the main conflict of Load Region of Deja Vu: because Okarin's Reading Steiner is overloaded, the current line world line won't acclimate him, causing him to just vanish into thin air in the blink of an eye.
    • The description on the back of the film's case tells you everything you need to know about the film's driving plot point: "Would you remember me if I never existed?" Life goes on, but all traces and memories of you are retroactively removed from the timeline as if you were never part of this world to begin with? Terrifying to think about!
    • Okabe does just that at the dry cleaners; as he is talking to Kurisu about his ability to retain memories from other world lines, and she tells him to let her know when he has another headache, he suddenly just vanishes mid-conversation without warning. Imagine what that looks like through Kurisu's eyes...

Linear Bounded Phenogram

  • Up until this entry, only Okabe had been using the Time Leap Machine for whatever purpose he sees fit. In this game, Kurisu and Ruka get to use the device for themselves and, yes, the effects are just as traumatic for them as it was for Okabe; Kurisu almost passes out from the dizziness afterwards, while Ruka is screaming in agony.
  • Mr. Tennouji has on many occasions threatened Okabe with eviction, or a rent hike if he continued to cause him trouble; in his story, he gets so angry that he outright threatens to kill everyone in the room when he kicks them out after disagreements with the lab's renovations turn hostile.
  • In Ruka's story, we learn that Mayuri suddenly died of a heart attack while attending ComiMa. Worse still, we are shown what that looks like; she's clutching her chest with a look of sheer agony on her face (which is just in frame). For heart attack survivors, this would be painful to look at.
  • The events leading up to August 13th play out from Moeka's perspective in "The Quantum Awakening", but it illustrates how dangerous the Rounders can when she spots some of them chasing down and killing a scientist who had defected from them. Then there's her internal war with herself when she has to choose where her loyalty lies, whether she saves her friend from a hit that she was instructed to put on or choosing to bond with her new allies at the risk of being abandoned by the one parental figure she'd ever had. Her breaking point comes at the end when she is ordered to kill her friends herself.
  • Suzuha being buried alive after helping Faris find Nae when the underground station suddenly collapses.
  • Daru becoming a super creep around Nae in "Lunar Bifrost". The way he interacts with her, aware that her dad isn't around anymore to kick his ass is disturbing on so many levels.
    • Aside from having to deal with Daru, 13-year-old Nae has no real family left and almost everyone else she knew at the lab is either dead or has disappeared. With only the Akiha family taking her in, her world has become so much lonelier. Then there's her and Daru trying to get the Phonewave working again while having to sneak in and out of the long abandoned Ohiyama building with SERN agents keeping a constant eye on the place
  • "Abduction across Three Worlds" involves Okabe trying to prevent Mayuri from being captured by some dudes in Black Hoods, all while trying to find her prized pocket watch (which we later learn she pawned to raise funds for the lab). Though all conflicts are resolved by the end, the result is a closed time loop that Okabe may or may not be trapped in forever.
    • Fridge Horror sets in when you remember a similar situation that resulted in Suzuha's ending; by closing himself off in a time loop, Okabe wound up going insane to the point of contemplating committing unspeakable acts on his friends. What if the same thing happens here and no one picks up on what's going on? It's still a terrifying prospect even if the story ends before the cycle repeats.
    • The brief scene where the lab is caked in blood from top to bottom, looking like a murder scene. Thankfully, we discover that it is fake blood stored in a glowstick.
    • The Black Hoods? They look like an ominous, creepy bunch of guys hellbent on kidnapping Mayuri...until they are revealed to be a group of cosplayers lead by the older brother of one of Mayuri's cosplay friends (whom Okabe very, very nearly beats the shit out of).

My Darling's Embrace

  • The scene in which Okabe almost drowns at the swimming pool is played out with a lot of realism, highlighting how dangerous it can be when you play foolish games you don't know in deep water.
  • The CG of Moeka (with black hair and her glasses removed) peering through her apartment window is rather frightening. Pleasant dreams!
  • While Shido has been a thug at worst and a nuisance at best in other games, here he is a white-collar criminal who uses money and intimidation tactics to acquire a monopoly on Akihabara's maid café scene. Faris describes how he forces maids under his employ to wear skimpy outfits and perform lewd poses for his customers; worse still, she even recounts how he would threaten them if they refused. Just a reminder, most of these girls are still high schoolers!
    • Then there's his intent on destroying MayQueen as a business by acquiring the building in which the café resides, and then isolating it inside if Faris refuses to comply with his demands.
    • The cherry on top is Okabe getting the shit beaten out of him by Shido's goons right in front of Faris, Mayuri, and Ruka. The screen shakes and sound effects say everything. Okabe should consider himself lucky that Daru, Suzuha, Kurisu and Moeka all showed up when they did!