Hey, you guys!

I'm only putting up this chapter because I've received some very interesting reviews. Quite interesting I must say.

From: Britani Gael ()

There's some problems with this story...I'll stick with the character problems.rnrnMalik hates everyone. Bakura hates everyone, and he sure ain't too fond of his host, either. Kaiba hates everyone except for Mokuba, and it'd be a hell of a long time before he cared about _anyone_ as much as he cares for Mokuba.rnrnYami Yuugi cares about Jounouchi more than anyone, except maybe Yuugi. He's not going to be choosing some annoying twit he just met--and he did just meet her, since he has _no memory_ of his past--over his best friend. In fact, if the cast met this girl, they'd probably see her as an instrument of evil sent to drive them apart, and destroy their precious friendship. Since Yami Yuugi takes friendship very seriously, he'd have no choice but to Mind Crush her out of existence.rnrnAnd the world would be a better place...

From: Ayu Ohseki ()

(*rubs temples*) All right... I've stayed silent long enough. I've seen your author profile, Ms. Mysterious Ocean's Mists, and the note that states "don't post flames in the reviews, just email me", but I've a feeling you'd simply ignore me if I did so. This isn't a flame, anyway; it's simply a statement of facts. I hope you and your loyal fans are mature enough to realize that, though I admit I am less than optimistic.

I do not like this fic. I do not like it at all. In fact, I dislike it so much that the mere thought of it makes my stomach churn. Yes, I have read the entire thing, which is why I'm reviewing chapter 25. Call it morbid fascination that I would read all of a story that I dislike—"How will she misrepresent all my favorite characters this chapter?" or something like that. I guess I have nerves of steel; I have three other friends who attempted to read the story and couldn't read it all because it disgusted them so much. I'm being nice there, by the way; there are much stronger words that I could pass along.

What is wrong with your story? Many, many, many things. For example: the nauseating characterization; the painfully obvious lack of research; the rape of canon, to the point where it may as well be an AU; the use of rape, as long as we've mentioned that, as a plot device; the overabundance of clichés; the flawed grammar; placing author's notes as stand-alone chapters rather than inserting them at the ends of chapters containing actual story; and, of course, the Mary Sue.

There were a couple of reviews prior to this one concerning the status of Daphne as a Mary Sue. One said she was "sort of" a Mary Sue; the other said she was "becoming" a Mary Sue and hoped you'd stop that. Believe me, Ms. Mists, they were being far too kind. Daphne/Daphnia/Delphinium is a Mary Sue through and through without any room for doubt, and she has been since line one—since, I imagine, her conception. How? Ah, so many things I could list. Let's stick with the basics, though. She is without flaws, unless you count the fact that she has no common sense. She is extravagantly beautiful to the point where all the male members of the cast who aren't supposed to be like family fall in love with her, and random males want her body so badly that they're willing to set aside the rigid set of morals instilled in the Japanese (because Yuu*Gi*Ou takes place in Japan, not America, meaning that Kaiba and company are Japanese, as a couple of other reviewers have pointed out and you have thus far neglected to take into account) to try to sexually assault her, which of course allows the males of the cast to protect and comfort poor violated, distressed little Daphne. Daphne does everything well, everyone adores her, she looks stunning in anything she wears, she isn't made fun of or ostracized at school because of her wearing that tiara (no matter where you are in the world, if you are attending a public school, wearing a bejeweled tiara would be regarded as strange, and there are going to be people who pick on her; the fact that this does not happen only heightens her implausibility as a character). She is often and repeatedly described as a goddess, queen or princess, or otherwise an embodiment of perfection; I'm terribly sorry, but believable characters are not perfect, and as much as you probably wish otherwise, real people have flaws, and usually a good number of them. She was a princess in her past life and made to be the heir of Egypt, even though ancient Egypt was very big on the purity of blood, so much so that pharaohs would often marry family in order to keep the bloodline as pure as possible. In this life and her last, she had a tragic past that apparently only serves as a way for her to angst and get attention and sympathy from the canonical characters. She is sweet, innocent, pure, and all-forgiving. She has everyone in the cast wrapped around her little finger either through her charming personality or her radiant beauty, and she doesn't even realize it because she's so modest.

She also makes everyone act like they would never act in the series. I'll simply cover the characters you raped the worst, as this is getting rather long. (*ahem*) Yami no Yuugi threatens Jounouchi/Joey, his own best friend, with death for admitting that he has a crush on Daphne. Do you not know the extent to which Yami will go to protect and look out for Joey? Kaiba bothers to correspond with her when he receives her letter; Kaiba is not, never has been, and never will be a people person, and aside from Mokuba, he hates all people, particularly his family. He would not care if this unknown cousin of his were orphaned, and he would certainly not take a day off of work to meet her at the airport. Yami no Bakura looks out for her and care for her and even joins Yami's group to be able to be close to her, even though he is an arrogant, power-hungry sociopath with no love for anyone but himself. Malik tells her about his family and shows her the Pharaoh's Memory carved upon his back, even though these things that he would not tell or show a virtual stranger lightly, even in anger, because the former is his private life which he likes to keep private, and the latter is supposed to be a secret.

As for canonical information, you either abused or neglected quite a bit, which I imagine is due to the fact that you didn't try to research the back story before you began this tale. For example: Yami no Yuugi has no memory of his past. It's one of the driving points of the plot. But that would just about ruin the premise of your story, so we can't have that, hmm? The Pharaoh's name is also unknown; that's another one of the driving plot points (in order to restore all of the Pharaoh's power, Yuugi and company have to find out his name), so calling him Pharaoh Yami or Pharaoh Yu-Gi-Oh is incorrect. Mahad, or Mahato as you called him, did not seal Bakura into the Millennium Ring; Bakura took the Ring after Mahad sealed his ba into what is now called the Black Magician and proceeded to wreak even more havoc than he had before. Considering he had raided the Pharaoh's father's tomb, stole his mummified body, then dragged it to the Pharaoh's court and dumped it on the floor, declaring himself to be Touzokuou Bakura (Thief King Bakura) and swearing his undying hatred to the Pharaoh, that's quite a bit of havoc. Yuugi and the other Yuugi have only one body between the two of them; they switch out when one desires control. The same goes for Bakura and the other Bakura, except since the other Bakura, or Yami Bakura, is not much more than a parasite, when he takes control, it is nonconsensual. The reason Malik is doing all that he's doing is because he thinks the Pharaoh cursed his clan to 3000 years of darkness and made him kill his father (yes, Malik killed his father, and he was VERY upset when he came to his sense and saw the body, which would imply that in spite of his father carving the Pharaoh's Memory on his back, he actually liked/loved Master Ishtar); Yami no Malik, who was born from Malik's pain and hatred as the Pharaoh's Memory was carved upon his back, was the real murderer, but since Rishid, a servant of the Ishtar family who is like a brother to Isis and Malik, carved into his face hieroglyphics that quelled Malik's hatred and sealed Yami no Malik in his body, Yami no Malik cannot speak freely. Malik doesn't even know he exists until Rishid is smited by Ra in his duel against Jounouchi on Battle Ship, and the trauma of seeing that happen allows Yami no Malik to suppress the surface Malik and take control. These are, by the way, only examples of the most glaring errors in your story, Ms. Mists.

Incidentally, I must impress upon you the fact that RAPE AND ATTEMPTED RAPE IS NOT, I REPEAT, NOT A PLOT DEVICE. Not only is it tacky and tasteless to treat it so, but it is horribly clichéd and often just as horribly employed. Your use of it wasn't the worst I've seen (there are fanfics where rape was used nearly casually), but considering Daphne got over her attempted rape the chapter after it happened, it was clear that, like her tragic pasts and the "suffering" she's undergone in both lifetimes, it was merely used as a cheap plot device to garner pity for your Mary Sue rather than as a way to deepen, further and explore her character. That is HORRIBLY insulting for anyone who knows anything about what rape is really like, either through personal experience or through research, which you clearly did not use. Only very skilled writers should even attempt to go near the subject, and although you could be worse, Ms. Mists, you are quite far from "very skilled".

According to your author profile, you are only fifteen. It could be worse; I've seen fanfics written by college students who were apparently English majors that were as bad as this in their own special way. I suppose now you want me to make up for all the "mean" things I've said with some praise about your story, or a recommendation on how it can be fixed. I'm sorry, but the flaws in this story are irreconcilable. You have built this story around Daphne, and she is the source of all of the flaws in the story, from the characterization issues to the canon abuse. You would have to drastically change Daphne, and indeed the story itself to improve it, and that would involve re-writing the entire thing.

Another review for this story suggested that you should become a professional writer. I urge you, Ms. Mists, to ignore that person; as you are now, you do NOT have the talent to be a professional. Do you think me cruel? I am NOTHING compared to editors and publishers. They wouldn't even spend the time to tear this apart. If you were to send a professional editor an original story of this caliber, you would receive a form rejection letter; the editor wouldn't have even read past page one. I assure you, I'm being remarkably kind, especially considering how you distorted one of my favorite anime beyond recognition. I will say that at least your spelling is quite good but for a few words, and that you know how to paragraph properly, and you don't insert author's notes in the middle of the story. At least there's that. However, you beg for reviews, which implies that you only write for the gratuitous ego-stroking. If you're serious, though, my advice is this: as along as you write characters like Daphne with no real depth and no character growth—you've in fact made character growth impossible because Daphne is already perfect—you will never be a truly skilled writer. I recommend you to scrap this entire story, take a few writing courses, PAY ATTENTION to what those courses attempt to teach you, and do research on how to write a plausible, well-rounded character. As much as you probably don't like it, research is vital for nearly any story, and without even a little of it, your ideas and prose will suffer accordingly.

I could detail many other things, but I trust you've gotten the point by now. If you like, we can discuss this in greater detail over email or AIM to go over what not to do if you decide start over, as I hardly covered everything that was incorrect about Forbidden Memories of the Past...or you and your fans can prove yourselves immature and flame me and my stories. I would like to believe that there is indeed hope for humanity, so I'm trusting that you will pick the former, and not do anything as hideously childish as call your friends on me to tell me off and leave you alone because you're just writing for fun and it's your story and if I don't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all. If you post a story publicly, you are opening yourself for feedback of all types, and that includes criticism. Furthermore, writing for fun does not excuse the things I have listed above; if you are truly a fan of the series, you will make an attempt to get your fanworks to match as closely to the original story as possible because you love and respect it. If you have no love or respect for a given fiction, you have no right to call yourself a fan.

Finally, this review is not a personal attack on you, Ms. Mists, and if it seemed that way at some points, I apologize. I am not calling you a bad person for writing this. You are young and likely inexperienced, after all, and it's possible that if you're at all serious about writing, you will interpret this review as a wake-up call and actively improve yourself. If you are, you may look back some years into the future and quietly thank the me in your memories for telling you the stark, unvarnished, un-sugarcoated truth before you had grown too accustomed to your tired, clichéd mode of writing.

Good-bye and good luck. I wish you good health, and I hope you take this to heart, Ms. Mists.

~~Ayu Ohseki (April 20, 2003)

Profile of Ayu Ohseki:

I took a psychoanalysis quiz for Kaiba earlier today. (URL: ) We all know he's pretty crazy, but I was curious as to *how* crazy, and these were the results I got:

Disorder | Rating
Paranoid: Very High
Schizoid: Very High
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: High
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Moderate
Narcissistic: Very High
Avoidant: Low
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: High

Kaiba has Issues. In other news, I know I had that deliciously long rant about 'dammit-they-fragged-Jou' (which, as I recall, caused a friend of mine to spawn an original character for YGO! nn;) for a long time. Well, it turns out I was wrong. Really wrong. Oh, and Jounouchi's alive after all. I don't know how or why, seeing as that episode was very clearly titled "Jounouchi Dies". Bakura-kun's not dead anymore either, it seems. Same with Pegasus, who it seems was never dead to begin with. Dammit, nobody in this series stays dead. I think anybody could die now and it wouldn't really phase me, since NOBODY STAYS DEAD. ("Nothing dead [stays] here!") It's kind of annoying, really. Similar is my rant about Yuugi and his "heart of the cards", which I have come to believe is a fancy way of saying he cheats. Come on, you're in a tight spot, there's one card in your deck that can save you, so what do you do? You *believe* in your deck, and the one card you need to save your bacon is *magically* drawn. Seriously, once your deck is shuffled, that's it. No matter how hard you believe, it's not going to rearrange itself to help you. All you can do is draw your next card. But noooo, everyone in YGO! always have to draw exactly the card they need exactly when they need it most... Maybe a little late, but never so late that they end up losing the duel. 'Cause, you know, Yuugi isn't allowed to lose, unless he loses on purpose, and then it isn't *Yami* Yuugi who lost, because *Omote* Yuugi interfered. He lost a total of three times, as far as I know. The first time was against Kaiba in Duelist Kingdom, when Yami Yuugi was *about* to beat Kaiba, but Omote Yuugi interfered 'cause he was too nice to risk killing Kaiba; the second time was against Rebecca Hawking, when Yuugi surrendered because he wanted to gain her friendship, although had he chosen to go on, he clearly would have won; and the third time was when Yuugi dueled brainwashed Jounouchi in a Death Duel, and deliberately made himself lose so that Jounouchi would live. Of course, Yuugi was also saved anyway, so it wasn't much of a loss. Dammit, I'd like to see Yuugi lose at least *some* of the time. Would make it a lot more believable.

I have a rant about Malik, too, although I think I'll ignore it for now in favor of keeping this area not *too* cluttered with unimportant information.

Mysterious Ocean's Mists:

Now, this is coming from a person who said I'm not a true Yu-Gi-Oh fan. Quite interesting, isn't it? But somehow, I would have expected this sort of review to come from a negative person like her.

And to Ayu Ohseki, I have a message for you:

Since you posted your unhappiness with my story and your criticisms on fanfiction for me to see, I feel it's only fair that I do the same to you. Here are only a few things that I'm very unhappy with you about. There is more, but I have better things to do than to discuss your attitude with you. That's the psychologist's job, not mine.

I'm never going to appreciate you silently in my heart. You may think you're doing me a favor with your sick mind, but that's because you're so negative you don't know who you really are. And this review, I almost laughed when I read it. As for the "nauseating characters," as you call them, they are characters. And some characters are different. Some may be totally flawless and others a total clutz. Some may be beautiful and some just aren't. I happen to choose Daphne to be totally flawless and beautiful. She's the character I've created. If you don't like it, then don't read my story. It's put up for people to enjoy, not to analyze the details you don't like.

And for the "canonical information," I did do research on it, in fact, I dare say that more than you know from what you have put up. But, unlike you, I'm not bored so I'm not going to get into the details. (If you're interested in the right information, you can e-mail me and we can discuss it) But you really should check for your information perfection before posting them up and accusing me.

"If you are truly a fan of the series, you will make an attempt to get your fanworks to match as closely to the original story as possible because you love and respect it. If you have no love or respect for a given fiction, you have no right to call yourself a fan." You say.

I love all the characters, and that's why I believe they all have good in them. I don't believe they're born evil and I don't believe that they can't change. They may all hate each other now, but I believe they still have a heart and something, or someone, could melt their hatred. You state that I'm not writing near the truth and that I'm raping the characters, but I'm not the one who's ranting about certain characters. You think Kaiba has issues, you have rantings about Marik, you think everybody should hate everybody, you don't believe or even respects one of the biggest faith of the anime (which is the "Heart of the Cards"), you even think Yugi is cheating…how can this be your favorite Anime?! Don't you even feel shameful to say to say that Yu-Gi-Oh is one of your favorite anime? I may not be the fan you describe me to be under your conditions, but you definitely are not a fan either. Anime is based on unbelievable thing in the first place. Yami's hair wouldn't have three colors and the style wouldn't be like that, Duel Monster cards would not dominate the whole town, Seto Kaiba wouldn't have his own company or own his mansion, Mokuba would still be in the orphanage, and Pharaohs don't live in Millennium Puzzles. That's only the beginning and this is the way anime is. Believable is definitely not one of the words to describe anime—at least this certain anime. If you want believable stuff, don't spend your time trashing my story and giving me your so-call helpful advice. Go look for something that would suit your taste.

Regarding your advice on whether I have the talent to write or not, I'll leave the editors and myself to decide that. I can fool myself if I want, believing that I have the talent, but you have no say whatever so in my life and my writing. I…don't…want…your…opinion—nor do I want your help in trying to analyze whether I'm a writer or not. You may think you're helping but you are not. You're not an editor, after all, and this is none of your concern. If I want to "waste" my time and become an author, then why does it bother you? Or do you just go around and give your "remarkably kind" advice to people? This is fanfiction.net, if you can't accept other people's ideas, then this is not a site for you. Fanfiction.net is where people post their thoughts and let their imagination flow.

You are polite though, to refer me as Ms. Mists, though it somehow sounds sickening coming from you. I mean, you call me Ms. Mists, yet you trash my story…doesn't that sound hypocritical and fake? Acting as if you're all sweet and polite and just giving me useful advice when you're obviously just satisfying yourself by putting down an author's work.

Oh, one last thing, you must have too much time on your hands if you read all 25 chapters and wrote this HUGE "fault" list for me to consider. Why don't you go and visit a psychologist.

Finally, this chapter is not a personal attack on you, Ms. Ohseki, and if it seemed that way at some points, I apologize. I am not calling you a bad person for writing to me this so very helpful review. You are probably living in your dark, negative world and likely inexperienced in the positive life, after all, and it's possible that if you're at all serious about wanting to help me, you will interpret this chapter as a wake-up call and actively improve yourself and your attitude to help others. If you are, you may look back some years in the future and quietly thank me in your memories for telling you the cold, honest, sorrowful truth before you had grown too accustomed to your mean, rude, ruthless mode of giving advice.

I hope you're not going to sic your little friend on me about how correct you are and flame me or report me for abuse to take away my story. I took the honorable way of explaining things to you and I expect that same courtesy from you.

Good-bye and good luck. I wish you good physical and mental health, and I do hope you take this to heart, Ms.Ohseki.

~Mysterious Ocean's Mists

April 21, 2003

(Now, if that sounded sarcastic and mean and hypocritical to you, that's how it was to me when I read your review. Don't review my stories again if you're going to analyze more problems. I like it the way it is now and I know better than to re-write and change something that means something to me and not to you, for you.)