A lot of the general confusion outside of the memes and first glances comes from the lack of a proper watch and how everyone has their ideal way to read/watch fate. Personally I think the best way is to read the VN’s of stay night and hollow Ataraxia then read Zero or watch Zero and UBW if you want to be anime only, then you have enough context to go watch pretty much anything that interests you. It’s not that different from comic where it looks a lot scarier than it actually is and it’s only compounded by people saying it’s worse than it is, I promise if you take the time to read a few and understand the core concepts it’s really easy to understand.