Entry tags:
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recolle | application
PLAYER
YOUR NAME: Sarah
18+?: Yep!
CONTACT:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
thelightroyale or PMs to this journal work too.
CHARACTERS IN GAME: None!
RESERVATION LINK: Here!
YOUR NAME: Sarah
18+?: Yep!
CONTACT:
CHARACTERS IN GAME: None!
RESERVATION LINK: Here!
CHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: Seto Kaiba
AGE: 19
CANON: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters
NAME: Seto Kaiba
AGE: 19
CANON: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters
CANON HISTORY: Link here
CANON PERSONALITY:
Everyone knows that Seto Kaiba is a child prodigy, a genius inventor and the youngest CEO of Kaiba Corporation, along with being one of the top three duelists in the world. Fewer people know of his reputation as a ruthless businessman who is willing to do anything in pursuit of his own ambitions, even if his plans may skirt on the edge of barely legal. His plans are usually elaborate, and he approaches most things with strategies that have been developed by an analytical, calculating mind. It’s not easy to get along with Seto Kaiba - at best, he tolerates people, and his respect is difficult to earn. His manner of speech is curt, short and almost rude, the implication that you’re not worth my time lingering heavily in his interactions. He’s logical, rational, and is disinclined to believe in the existence of magic unless there’s no other plausible reaction for it. For all his love of dueling theatrics, flashy entrances and larger-than-life appearances, Seto guards his personal space closely.
It’s not surprising that Seto wants to keep much of his early life under wraps. Seto Kaiba grew up crooked because somebody kept breaking him bit by bit as he went. Growing up under the sheer amount of emotional, physical and psychological abuse subjected to him by Gozaburo Kaiba would have been enough to break anyone. Gozaburo doesn’t realise that he’s not just creating an heir to succeed, but a powerful enemy. Fear and hatred is a powerful motivator, after all, and it’s Gozaburo’s abuse that motivates Seto to orchestrate a hostile takeover of Kaiba Corporation, and even as Gozaburo commits suicide at having lost this “game” with Seto, Seto shows no remorse for it, even calmly remarking his reaffirmation that to lose means death.
At his worst, Seto Kaiba is a power-hungry, prideful and self-absorbed individual whose sense of morality is centred on his own goals and desires - stealing rare cards, making deals with the mafia, inducing rivals to ruin: these are all fair game and perfectly acceptable means to an end according to Seto’s worldview. He’s convinced that his deck and his strategies are unbeatable, overpowering his opponents through sheer strength and attack points and crippling his opponents completely with trap cards intended to destroy any cards that can be used against him. He looks down on what he perceives to be weakness (and by extension, dueling with weak cards), and is always hungry for the sheer satisfaction of crushing his rivals completely. His pride also means that he does not take insults or slights against him lightly. He hates being humiliated. He hunts down rivals for years until he has beaten them fully. He builds an elaborate death theme park as revenge against Dark Yugi for the Experience of Death Penalty Game. He will be the King of Games one day, even if the title now belongs to Yugi Mutou. He organises Battle City for the sheer purposes to amass the God Cards to make his deck the most powerful in existence, and to claim victory over Yugi.
At one point, Seto turns out to be such a scarred and twisted human being who has completely lost his sense of empathy and compassion, leaving only his capacity for cruelty, that the only way to fix him is for Dark Yugi to shatter his mind completely with a Mind Crush in an attempt to destroy the evil, grotesque part of his personality.
It helps, somewhat. After putting his heart and mind back together, when Seto awakens from the coma that was induced by the Mind Crush, there’s not much difference to him on the surface. Seto is still arrogant, self-absorbed and competitive - even though he doesn’t quite believe that losing means death, losing is still an undesirable outcome and his desire to win and be the best is still one of his driving motivators. Everything that he does is still with his best interests and with his own goals in mind - he’s just a little bit more willing to use teamwork instead of working purely on his own, such as working together with Yugi in a tag duel against the Masks of Darkness and Light during Battle City. He isn’t as callous with human life as he was previously, expressing disgust over Marik’s tactics to kill Jonouchi and Yugi and trying to call the duel on the pier off.
Seto does not trust easily, and he doesn’t believe in friendship the way Yugi and his friends do. He isn't exactly good with people, except in how he can use them, and intentionally keeps others at arm's length, not wishing to get close to anyone. Rather, what he values is loyalty - both to himself and Kaiba Corporation. Even when confronted by Anzu at Duelist Kingdom about his lack of friends, Seto has said that he doesn’t need friends. However, Seto recognises Yugi as a formidable rival with dueling skills that are worth his time - and perhaps the closest thing that he has to a friend. On the other hand, Jonouchi Katsuya is an annoying pest who isn’t worth his time, a half-rate duelist who courses by on luck rather than genuine skill. Currently, his loyalties lie with himself, and with Mokuba. His relationship with Mokuba is the one most important relationship that Seto has in his life, and Seto would go to the ends of the earth to protect Mokuba from harm if he was able to. And he tries, taking his role as Mokuba’s caretaker and surrogate parent very seriously, even though Seto was too young and emotionally damaged to raise Mokuba properly. To use a chess metaphor for the Kaiba brothers, Seto Kaiba is the queen, and Mokuba is his king. He may be the most powerful piece on the board, but if the king, Mokuba, is not protected, he loses it all.
That’s not to say that Kaiba is an emotionless bastard, even though he seems to act that way most of the time. The hardened shell and ruthless front that Seto adopts is a perfect floodgate keeping those emotions away, impenetrable enough that no one really knows how deep and powerful his emotions run. He’s a creature of passion and of obsession. His purest reactions are in the heat of a duel, when his emotions run high and he pours everything he has into the game. He’s not the kind of person who makes impulsive decisions on a whim, but it’s undeniable that many of his decisions and his actions are influenced by his mental and emotional state. Seto makes calculated risks, including his not-quite suicide attempt at the castle tower at Duelist Kingdom when he realises that his loss would render him unable to save Mokuba from Pegasus.
Despite that, Seto has a soft spot for most children, especially those who were as unfortunate as he was. Part of the reason why he turned Kaiba Corporation into a gaming corporation from a corporation that used to manufacture weapons was his own deep seated wish that he wants them to have the childhood that he never had. He throws himself into the development of Kaiba Land in America after the Battle City tournament in realisation of this wish. It’s also a crazy work ethic and genius that gets him there. Seto has been known to be so absorbed in his projects and his inventions - Solid Vision, the Duel Boxes, new and improved versions of Duel Disk technologies (the list goes on forever, really, and it’s implied that Kaiba Corporation is involved in most industries in Domino) - that he’s fallen asleep at work before.
Although Seto has a connection with the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, his favourite monster and his most loyal servant, the remnants of his connection to a distant past 3,000 years ago, it’s more accurate to say that Seto Kaiba is more like a phoenix, rising from the ashes of his past and moving forward. Seto Kaiba is a survivor - he has struggled constantly over the years, even with steps in the wrong direction, but he somehow manages to keep moving forward, refusing to let the the guilt of his sins drag him down. Seto started out as a penniless orphan who had been betrayed by everyone who knew him, to being the CEO of an international corporation - he doesn’t believe in destiny, he makes his own future, his past is what drives him forward.
SKILLS/ABILITIES:
Seto Kaiba falls more under the category of ordinary human and doesn’t have much in terms of magical powers. Most of his latent magical ability really comes from the fact that he is the reincarnation of a pretty damn powerful Egyptian High Priest (and later Pharaoh) from 3,000 odd years ago. As a Chosen of the Gods and having formerly wielded the God Card “Obelisk the Tormentor”, Seto has an instinctive ability to read and understand the ancient Egyptian language in its Hieratic text form. It’s also implied that if he ever deigns to use his magical abilities, he would also be able to summon Duel Monsters from the Shadow Realm for Shadow Games.
Being staunchly anti-magic as he is though, it’s unlikely that he will ever realise that he has such powers or ever use them.
That aside, much of Seto’s talents lie in his genius-level intellect. As a child prodigy who underwent a heavily accelerated education program, he has a college level education and is fluent in several languages, including English, Japanese and German. At 16 years old, Seto ascended to the role of CEO at Kaiba Corporation, a multibillion conglomerate in various industries (primarily gaming), and his sharp business acumen has allowed him to continue running the company like the giant behemoth that it is.
Seto is an advanced gamer - he has high scores in almost every single arcade game in the whole of Japan and was the former world champion in Duel Monsters (until his defeat at the hands of Yugi Mutou). In addition, his niche talents are in the field of computer science, programming and engineering - having developed his own holographic technologies and inventions utilising said technologies, and he knows enough about hacking to be able to boast that he can break into any system. In fact, he was able to hack into Industrial Illusions’ satellite systems and break through all their defences.
Seto also keeps his body in peak physical condition and is an advanced martial artist. It’s more out of habit than anything - Gozaburo made sure that Seto was able to defend himself in any situation. He’s been shown to easily overpower someone who’s much larger and stronger than he is (including Pegasus’s guards) and is agile and strong enough to climb over walls and gates, jump out of windows and catch himself on a cliff, and he’s definitely not above fighting dirty and using his opponent’s weaknesses against them.
On a side note, he's able to weaponise his cards and use them to stab people and disarm guns, so there's that.
CANON PERSONALITY:
Listen carefully, Ishizu... Your visions of the future don't scare me! I walk my own road! And I make my own future!- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist, Chapter 119
Everyone knows that Seto Kaiba is a child prodigy, a genius inventor and the youngest CEO of Kaiba Corporation, along with being one of the top three duelists in the world. Fewer people know of his reputation as a ruthless businessman who is willing to do anything in pursuit of his own ambitions, even if his plans may skirt on the edge of barely legal. His plans are usually elaborate, and he approaches most things with strategies that have been developed by an analytical, calculating mind. It’s not easy to get along with Seto Kaiba - at best, he tolerates people, and his respect is difficult to earn. His manner of speech is curt, short and almost rude, the implication that you’re not worth my time lingering heavily in his interactions. He’s logical, rational, and is disinclined to believe in the existence of magic unless there’s no other plausible reaction for it. For all his love of dueling theatrics, flashy entrances and larger-than-life appearances, Seto guards his personal space closely.
It’s not surprising that Seto wants to keep much of his early life under wraps. Seto Kaiba grew up crooked because somebody kept breaking him bit by bit as he went. Growing up under the sheer amount of emotional, physical and psychological abuse subjected to him by Gozaburo Kaiba would have been enough to break anyone. Gozaburo doesn’t realise that he’s not just creating an heir to succeed, but a powerful enemy. Fear and hatred is a powerful motivator, after all, and it’s Gozaburo’s abuse that motivates Seto to orchestrate a hostile takeover of Kaiba Corporation, and even as Gozaburo commits suicide at having lost this “game” with Seto, Seto shows no remorse for it, even calmly remarking his reaffirmation that to lose means death.
At his worst, Seto Kaiba is a power-hungry, prideful and self-absorbed individual whose sense of morality is centred on his own goals and desires - stealing rare cards, making deals with the mafia, inducing rivals to ruin: these are all fair game and perfectly acceptable means to an end according to Seto’s worldview. He’s convinced that his deck and his strategies are unbeatable, overpowering his opponents through sheer strength and attack points and crippling his opponents completely with trap cards intended to destroy any cards that can be used against him. He looks down on what he perceives to be weakness (and by extension, dueling with weak cards), and is always hungry for the sheer satisfaction of crushing his rivals completely. His pride also means that he does not take insults or slights against him lightly. He hates being humiliated. He hunts down rivals for years until he has beaten them fully. He builds an elaborate death theme park as revenge against Dark Yugi for the Experience of Death Penalty Game. He will be the King of Games one day, even if the title now belongs to Yugi Mutou. He organises Battle City for the sheer purposes to amass the God Cards to make his deck the most powerful in existence, and to claim victory over Yugi.
At one point, Seto turns out to be such a scarred and twisted human being who has completely lost his sense of empathy and compassion, leaving only his capacity for cruelty, that the only way to fix him is for Dark Yugi to shatter his mind completely with a Mind Crush in an attempt to destroy the evil, grotesque part of his personality.
It helps, somewhat. After putting his heart and mind back together, when Seto awakens from the coma that was induced by the Mind Crush, there’s not much difference to him on the surface. Seto is still arrogant, self-absorbed and competitive - even though he doesn’t quite believe that losing means death, losing is still an undesirable outcome and his desire to win and be the best is still one of his driving motivators. Everything that he does is still with his best interests and with his own goals in mind - he’s just a little bit more willing to use teamwork instead of working purely on his own, such as working together with Yugi in a tag duel against the Masks of Darkness and Light during Battle City. He isn’t as callous with human life as he was previously, expressing disgust over Marik’s tactics to kill Jonouchi and Yugi and trying to call the duel on the pier off.
Seto does not trust easily, and he doesn’t believe in friendship the way Yugi and his friends do. He isn't exactly good with people, except in how he can use them, and intentionally keeps others at arm's length, not wishing to get close to anyone. Rather, what he values is loyalty - both to himself and Kaiba Corporation. Even when confronted by Anzu at Duelist Kingdom about his lack of friends, Seto has said that he doesn’t need friends. However, Seto recognises Yugi as a formidable rival with dueling skills that are worth his time - and perhaps the closest thing that he has to a friend. On the other hand, Jonouchi Katsuya is an annoying pest who isn’t worth his time, a half-rate duelist who courses by on luck rather than genuine skill. Currently, his loyalties lie with himself, and with Mokuba. His relationship with Mokuba is the one most important relationship that Seto has in his life, and Seto would go to the ends of the earth to protect Mokuba from harm if he was able to. And he tries, taking his role as Mokuba’s caretaker and surrogate parent very seriously, even though Seto was too young and emotionally damaged to raise Mokuba properly. To use a chess metaphor for the Kaiba brothers, Seto Kaiba is the queen, and Mokuba is his king. He may be the most powerful piece on the board, but if the king, Mokuba, is not protected, he loses it all.
That’s not to say that Kaiba is an emotionless bastard, even though he seems to act that way most of the time. The hardened shell and ruthless front that Seto adopts is a perfect floodgate keeping those emotions away, impenetrable enough that no one really knows how deep and powerful his emotions run. He’s a creature of passion and of obsession. His purest reactions are in the heat of a duel, when his emotions run high and he pours everything he has into the game. He’s not the kind of person who makes impulsive decisions on a whim, but it’s undeniable that many of his decisions and his actions are influenced by his mental and emotional state. Seto makes calculated risks, including his not-quite suicide attempt at the castle tower at Duelist Kingdom when he realises that his loss would render him unable to save Mokuba from Pegasus.
Despite that, Seto has a soft spot for most children, especially those who were as unfortunate as he was. Part of the reason why he turned Kaiba Corporation into a gaming corporation from a corporation that used to manufacture weapons was his own deep seated wish that he wants them to have the childhood that he never had. He throws himself into the development of Kaiba Land in America after the Battle City tournament in realisation of this wish. It’s also a crazy work ethic and genius that gets him there. Seto has been known to be so absorbed in his projects and his inventions - Solid Vision, the Duel Boxes, new and improved versions of Duel Disk technologies (the list goes on forever, really, and it’s implied that Kaiba Corporation is involved in most industries in Domino) - that he’s fallen asleep at work before.
Although Seto has a connection with the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, his favourite monster and his most loyal servant, the remnants of his connection to a distant past 3,000 years ago, it’s more accurate to say that Seto Kaiba is more like a phoenix, rising from the ashes of his past and moving forward. Seto Kaiba is a survivor - he has struggled constantly over the years, even with steps in the wrong direction, but he somehow manages to keep moving forward, refusing to let the the guilt of his sins drag him down. Seto started out as a penniless orphan who had been betrayed by everyone who knew him, to being the CEO of an international corporation - he doesn’t believe in destiny, he makes his own future, his past is what drives him forward.
SKILLS/ABILITIES:
Seto Kaiba falls more under the category of ordinary human and doesn’t have much in terms of magical powers. Most of his latent magical ability really comes from the fact that he is the reincarnation of a pretty damn powerful Egyptian High Priest (and later Pharaoh) from 3,000 odd years ago. As a Chosen of the Gods and having formerly wielded the God Card “Obelisk the Tormentor”, Seto has an instinctive ability to read and understand the ancient Egyptian language in its Hieratic text form. It’s also implied that if he ever deigns to use his magical abilities, he would also be able to summon Duel Monsters from the Shadow Realm for Shadow Games.
Being staunchly anti-magic as he is though, it’s unlikely that he will ever realise that he has such powers or ever use them.
That aside, much of Seto’s talents lie in his genius-level intellect. As a child prodigy who underwent a heavily accelerated education program, he has a college level education and is fluent in several languages, including English, Japanese and German. At 16 years old, Seto ascended to the role of CEO at Kaiba Corporation, a multibillion conglomerate in various industries (primarily gaming), and his sharp business acumen has allowed him to continue running the company like the giant behemoth that it is.
Seto is an advanced gamer - he has high scores in almost every single arcade game in the whole of Japan and was the former world champion in Duel Monsters (until his defeat at the hands of Yugi Mutou). In addition, his niche talents are in the field of computer science, programming and engineering - having developed his own holographic technologies and inventions utilising said technologies, and he knows enough about hacking to be able to boast that he can break into any system. In fact, he was able to hack into Industrial Illusions’ satellite systems and break through all their defences.
Seto also keeps his body in peak physical condition and is an advanced martial artist. It’s more out of habit than anything - Gozaburo made sure that Seto was able to defend himself in any situation. He’s been shown to easily overpower someone who’s much larger and stronger than he is (including Pegasus’s guards) and is agile and strong enough to climb over walls and gates, jump out of windows and catch himself on a cliff, and he’s definitely not above fighting dirty and using his opponent’s weaknesses against them.
On a side note, he's able to weaponise his cards and use them to stab people and disarm guns, so there's that.
CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: Seto Kaiba
AU AGE: 28
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: None specifically, except that he looks older now that he's aged up.
AU NAME: Seto Kaiba
AU AGE: 28
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: None specifically, except that he looks older now that he's aged up.
AU HISTORY:
* All CR details mentioned here in relation to Lutece, Jackson & Hearst have been cleared by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
abovethefold!
• Born as Yamashiro Seto, older of two children to a middle-class, relatively privileged family in Tokyo, Japan.
• Is discovered to be a child genius by his teachers shortly after starting primary school. While not allowed to officially skip grades, Seto is pretty much allowed to blitz through the entire primary and middle school curriculum in self-study periods, and then some.
• Tragedy strikes shortly after his eighth birthday - a fatal accident claims the lives of both his parents.
• With no suitable relatives to take them in, Seto and his brother are dropped off at one of Tokyo's orphanages.
• Seto and his brother are adopted by an American couple three years later - his new father is a lawyer currently stationed in Tokyo, and his new mother is a housewife.
• The entire family moves back to the USA when his father completes his stint in Tokyo and is transferred back to the US offices of his current firm.
• Enters sophomore year of high school at age 12.
• Graduates high school at age 14 - his grades are good enough to get him admitted on an academic scholarship to any college of his choice.
• Graduates college at age 18 with a double degree in Economics and Political Science.
• Continues working at the college as a researcher and a part time Masters student in Economics (Game Theory) - it's during this time where he begins picking up computer programming and game design through the college's computer clubs. Discovers that he has a knack for this field and pretty much devotes most of his free time to refining his game coding and development skills.
• Applies to have his name changed to Seto Kaiba, intending to use it as his professional name.(He literally picks the name Kaiba out of a novel he's reading at the time.) This is also the period when he begins publishing some of his more basic platforming/puzzle games to platforms such as Steam and begins building up a following. Some of his games garner decent reviews from both gamers and journalists alike. This gives him the confidence to begin development on his very first major RPG game.
• The entire family relocates to Recollé two years later after he graduates from his Masters programme, when his father is offered a partnership position at the offices of Lutece, Jackson & Hearst in Recollé.
• Is subtly "pressured" by his father to pursue law, as it is a professional degree - subsequently enrols into Recollé University's Law Department. Works through his summer internships at various different law firms in Recollé, one of them being Lutece, Jackson & Hearst. Qualifies for the Bar after graduating and spends a year at Lutece, Jackson & Hearst as a junior associate. Subsequently tenders his resignation when he realises the only part of the work that he likes is litigation and he very much prefers game development as a career path.
• Sets up his own independent game label (Transcend:GAME) and devotes himself full-time to perfecting the development of his as-yet-unnamed-game - it's a combination of grants, connections in the right places to get several prominent names in the gaming community attached to the project and strategic sponsorships that enables the game to be even produced in the span of two years.
• Said game, Scylla and Charybdis, is a puzzle solving fantasy RPG heavily influenced by Greek mythologies and is released in 2014 to good reviews and a decent following. It's considered a breakthrough game that gets Seto recognised in most gaming circles as an up-and-coming developer.
• Is currently enrolled in a BSc/MEng course in Computer Graphics, Vision and Imaging in order to pick out further tips and other tricks to help in game development.
• Is currently working on his second mainstream-release game, slated for a 2017 Christmas release, and is also in the process of expanding his company through getting franchise development opportunities . His personal pet project is experimenting with virtual reality for implementation into his games.
AU PERSONALITY:
Seto Kaiba is a perfectly normal human being.
Okay, that’s stretching it, somewhat. Rather, while he retains traits of his core personality, he’s definitely less of a complete trainwreck when it comes to being a person. He's less arrogant but rather more overconfident because of his achievements and his status as being a child prodigy, and while his respect is still difficult to earn, he's more willing and open with giving it if it's deserved rather than treating people with outright disdain and disrespect. In other words, his misanthropic tendencies have been curbed to relatively manageable levels. He's better at interacting with people, and surprise, he's actually capable of forming positive relationships with people that aren't rooted in how useful a person can be, and actually trusting them, though it takes a while for Seto to be comfortable enough to get to that stage.
By virtue of not having grown up under Gozaburo’s abuse, and actually having a proper familial support system, Seto has never really had to bear the weight of the world of his shoulders or fight tooth and nail for survival and validation from Gozaburo. In that sense, Seto is very much more well-adjusted and functional, especially in comparison to his canon self. He's also a lot more laid back and less high-strung, considering that the stakes that he's playing with in this life are definitely not as high and more manageable - he doesn't have to worry about Mokuba being kidnapped by people who wants to use him as leverage against Seto or Kaiba Corporation, so accordingly, Seto doesn't treat the world with as much wariness and paranoia as he does in canon, doesn't watch over his shoulder just in case he's triggered an accidental trap which may or may not be his downfall. This translates to him being a little bit more relaxed among those who he knows he can trust. He was never taught that losing would result in death, so as a result, he’s a lot more accepting when it comes to failure and losing. While some things are important to him, like his career and how invested he is in it, he doesn't treat them like a life-or-death situation.
Seto also knows how to make an impression, whether it's in his dressing or in his mannerisms. In canon, most of his theatrics are in the Dueling arena - he knows how to work a crowd, knows how to get them hyped up, and he's a showman in the literal sense of the word. Duels are a show, and Seto Kaiba is an entertainer. Even without Duels, this incarnation of Seto Kaiba still has a certain type of charisma around him, a flair that was discovered during his one year while working the courtroom. He has a gilded tongue and a way with words when he's standing in front of a room of investors to pitch his newest game design and plans for his company, and he also knows how to work situations to his advantage. He knows what to say, builds connections, studies people, creates a careful mental archive of which buttons to push to get the response he wants and always has a contingency plan just in case. To use a chess metaphor, Seto Kaiba is the Queen - the most important piece on the board; the strategist, and it's not often that he doesn't get what he wants.
He's still relentlessly driven and competitive, with an obsessive perfectionist streak. Seto is the kind of person who still hates losing and will bury his failures under a multitude of successes in his attempts to achieve perfection. Thankfully for his opponents, though, he's mellowed out enough that he's not going to exact disproportionate retribution for having beaten him in a game. His perfectionist streak really manifests overtly in his work - he's the kind of person who genuinely enjoys his work and what he's doing and will put in whatever effort is needed to achieve his vision and his ambitions. He's the kind of person whose work ethic dictates that 3am is early and nothing less than perfection is acceptable. Even if people don't take him seriously, Seto Kaiba will find a way to make sure that he's taken seriously. That said, he's also not too worried about being underestimated - that just makes the feeling when he's completely crushed those expectations underfoot all the more sweeter.
* All CR details mentioned here in relation to Lutece, Jackson & Hearst have been cleared by
abovethefold!• Born as Yamashiro Seto, older of two children to a middle-class, relatively privileged family in Tokyo, Japan.
• Is discovered to be a child genius by his teachers shortly after starting primary school. While not allowed to officially skip grades, Seto is pretty much allowed to blitz through the entire primary and middle school curriculum in self-study periods, and then some.
• Tragedy strikes shortly after his eighth birthday - a fatal accident claims the lives of both his parents.
• With no suitable relatives to take them in, Seto and his brother are dropped off at one of Tokyo's orphanages.
• Seto and his brother are adopted by an American couple three years later - his new father is a lawyer currently stationed in Tokyo, and his new mother is a housewife.
• The entire family moves back to the USA when his father completes his stint in Tokyo and is transferred back to the US offices of his current firm.
• Enters sophomore year of high school at age 12.
• Graduates high school at age 14 - his grades are good enough to get him admitted on an academic scholarship to any college of his choice.
• Graduates college at age 18 with a double degree in Economics and Political Science.
• Continues working at the college as a researcher and a part time Masters student in Economics (Game Theory) - it's during this time where he begins picking up computer programming and game design through the college's computer clubs. Discovers that he has a knack for this field and pretty much devotes most of his free time to refining his game coding and development skills.
• Applies to have his name changed to Seto Kaiba, intending to use it as his professional name.
• The entire family relocates to Recollé two years later after he graduates from his Masters programme, when his father is offered a partnership position at the offices of Lutece, Jackson & Hearst in Recollé.
• Is subtly "pressured" by his father to pursue law, as it is a professional degree - subsequently enrols into Recollé University's Law Department. Works through his summer internships at various different law firms in Recollé, one of them being Lutece, Jackson & Hearst. Qualifies for the Bar after graduating and spends a year at Lutece, Jackson & Hearst as a junior associate. Subsequently tenders his resignation when he realises the only part of the work that he likes is litigation and he very much prefers game development as a career path.
• Sets up his own independent game label (Transcend:GAME) and devotes himself full-time to perfecting the development of his as-yet-unnamed-game - it's a combination of grants, connections in the right places to get several prominent names in the gaming community attached to the project and strategic sponsorships that enables the game to be even produced in the span of two years.
• Said game, Scylla and Charybdis, is a puzzle solving fantasy RPG heavily influenced by Greek mythologies and is released in 2014 to good reviews and a decent following. It's considered a breakthrough game that gets Seto recognised in most gaming circles as an up-and-coming developer.
• Is currently enrolled in a BSc/MEng course in Computer Graphics, Vision and Imaging in order to pick out further tips and other tricks to help in game development.
• Is currently working on his second mainstream-release game, slated for a 2017 Christmas release, and is also in the process of expanding his company through getting franchise development opportunities . His personal pet project is experimenting with virtual reality for implementation into his games.
AU PERSONALITY:
Seto Kaiba is a perfectly normal human being.
Okay, that’s stretching it, somewhat. Rather, while he retains traits of his core personality, he’s definitely less of a complete trainwreck when it comes to being a person. He's less arrogant but rather more overconfident because of his achievements and his status as being a child prodigy, and while his respect is still difficult to earn, he's more willing and open with giving it if it's deserved rather than treating people with outright disdain and disrespect. In other words, his misanthropic tendencies have been curbed to relatively manageable levels. He's better at interacting with people, and surprise, he's actually capable of forming positive relationships with people that aren't rooted in how useful a person can be, and actually trusting them, though it takes a while for Seto to be comfortable enough to get to that stage.
By virtue of not having grown up under Gozaburo’s abuse, and actually having a proper familial support system, Seto has never really had to bear the weight of the world of his shoulders or fight tooth and nail for survival and validation from Gozaburo. In that sense, Seto is very much more well-adjusted and functional, especially in comparison to his canon self. He's also a lot more laid back and less high-strung, considering that the stakes that he's playing with in this life are definitely not as high and more manageable - he doesn't have to worry about Mokuba being kidnapped by people who wants to use him as leverage against Seto or Kaiba Corporation, so accordingly, Seto doesn't treat the world with as much wariness and paranoia as he does in canon, doesn't watch over his shoulder just in case he's triggered an accidental trap which may or may not be his downfall. This translates to him being a little bit more relaxed among those who he knows he can trust. He was never taught that losing would result in death, so as a result, he’s a lot more accepting when it comes to failure and losing. While some things are important to him, like his career and how invested he is in it, he doesn't treat them like a life-or-death situation.
Seto also knows how to make an impression, whether it's in his dressing or in his mannerisms. In canon, most of his theatrics are in the Dueling arena - he knows how to work a crowd, knows how to get them hyped up, and he's a showman in the literal sense of the word. Duels are a show, and Seto Kaiba is an entertainer. Even without Duels, this incarnation of Seto Kaiba still has a certain type of charisma around him, a flair that was discovered during his one year while working the courtroom. He has a gilded tongue and a way with words when he's standing in front of a room of investors to pitch his newest game design and plans for his company, and he also knows how to work situations to his advantage. He knows what to say, builds connections, studies people, creates a careful mental archive of which buttons to push to get the response he wants and always has a contingency plan just in case. To use a chess metaphor, Seto Kaiba is the Queen - the most important piece on the board; the strategist, and it's not often that he doesn't get what he wants.
He's still relentlessly driven and competitive, with an obsessive perfectionist streak. Seto is the kind of person who still hates losing and will bury his failures under a multitude of successes in his attempts to achieve perfection. Thankfully for his opponents, though, he's mellowed out enough that he's not going to exact disproportionate retribution for having beaten him in a game. His perfectionist streak really manifests overtly in his work - he's the kind of person who genuinely enjoys his work and what he's doing and will put in whatever effort is needed to achieve his vision and his ambitions. He's the kind of person whose work ethic dictates that 3am is early and nothing less than perfection is acceptable. Even if people don't take him seriously, Seto Kaiba will find a way to make sure that he's taken seriously. That said, he's also not too worried about being underestimated - that just makes the feeling when he's completely crushed those expectations underfoot all the more sweeter.
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