The Letter Series

Tohsaka, I wonder how you two are doing now. Does it mean anything to you, Tohsaka, that each night when you hold him as he falls asleep how much I would give to do that for just one single night? One hour? How much it would mean to me, just to rest my head onto his chest and be lulled asleep by the sound of his heartbeat? You had everything I wanted in those days, you WERE everything I wanted.

—Sakura Matou (Dear Tohsaka)

The Letter Series is a series of fanfictions for Fate/stay night written by tobias on Fanfiction.net and includes three fanfictions: Dear Tohsaka, Dear Emiya and Dear Matou.

This series follows the aftermath events of the True End of Unlimited Blade Works. Sakura writes a letter to Rin detailing her life and feelings. The sequels take place not long after the first story. Shinji writes a letter from his point of view and finally the last letter is about Rin, who concludes the events. Each fic is one chapter long but they are incredibly emotional.

Tropes used in The Letter Series include:

Bittersweet Ending: The Letter Series ends with Shirou and Rin holding hands as they finish visiting Sakura's grave.
Broken Bird: Sakura
- Also debatably and to a lesser extent, Shinji.
Darker and Edgier
Death by Adaptation: Sakura commits suicide by drinking a special poison, thus killing Zouken as well, since he is connected to Sakura by the worms. Six years later Shinji dies because his body started deteriorating as a secondary effect of being exposed to the tainted Holy Grail.
Deconstruction Fic
Despair Event Horizon
Driven to Suicide: Sakura
Doomed by Canon: Saber left after the war.
I Just Want to Be You: Sakura openly admits it in Dear Tohsaka that she wanted to be like Rin because she had Shirou's love and because to her she was everything she could have been if she hasn't been adopted by the Matou family.

Sakura: "What would it be like if I was truly your sister, these were the things I dreamed about, smiling into my pillow, people would call me Sakura Tohsaka and they would say I was the number two idol of the school, I'm sure of it, I know I would never beat you. We would break every heart in the school, twice! Go to the same classes, chase the same boys, and cook the most amazing food together. And at night, maybe, we would sleep together in the same bed, like I hear a lot of sisters do, the worst fear we could ever imagine is to be separated from each other, even for a day. And I would call you Nee-san."

- Also, in Dear Emiya, Shinji declares that he never loved Rin, but she was everything he ever wanted to be.
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Sakura to Shirou, despite he ended up with her sister Rin.
Karmic Death: Shinji has a slow painful death, regretting what he had done in his life. thus mirroring Kiritsugu's fate (because in Shinji's letter, he comments that he had a similar fate as he was infected by the tainted Grail and abandoned his ideals).
- Considering that in the fic, he had a change of heart, his death is a Tear Jerker.
- Zouken also dies, because Sakura took her own life, thus ending Zouken's life as well, because he was connected to the worms inside Sakura.
Never Got to Say Goodbye: After Sakura's death, Rin, Shinji and Shirou feel this in varying degrees.
Meaningful Rename: In Dear Emiya, Shinji changes his surname from Matou to Emiya, after realizing the terrible things his family did, thus changing his ideals.
My God, What Have I Done?
Parting Words Regret: Shinji has a painful death and laments that Sakura commited suicide when he couldn't apologize for everything he did to hear all those years after realizing that being a magus wasn't worth everything.
- Also Sakura's only regret when dying is that she never could have called Rin by the suffix "Nee-san". In Dear Matou, Rin replies that she would have loved to.
Tear Jerker: Each of the three letters.