bluescreenwhitedragon | Imeeji App: Seto Kaiba

Player name: Suzu
Player age: Over 18
Method of contact:
LilySuzuran#9524 @ Discord
lilyofthevalley @ plurk

Character name: Kaiba Seto
Character canon: Yu-Gi-Oh!

Character summary:
Yu-Gi-Oh! is a story about broken children, occult magic, and a children’s trading card game. Kaiba fills the role of early villain who turns into the rival/anti-hero as the story progresses. His character arc is all about having his harsh and unyielding values challenged as he slowly grows into (somewhat) an actual person. In his first appearance, he tries to steal a rare and valuable trading card from Yugi, the story’s protagonist. Unbeknownst to Kaiba, however, Yugi has an amnesiac vengeful Egyptian Pharaoh (Atem) living inside the Millennium Puzzle he always wears. Atem severely trounces Kaiba in said card game and then forces him to suffer terrible nightmares. Not to be outdone, Kaiba then builds an amusement park of death to kill Yugi and his friends. Atem clears all levels of the amusement park, beating Kaiba once again and then leaving him in a coma for six months.

Their next encounter is in Duelist Kingdom, a card game tournament where Kaiba is trying to save his little brother Mokuba and Yugi is trying to save his grandfather. They begin by not actively fighting against each other, but eventually they are forced to duel each other in order to get a shot at the arc’s Big Bad. Kaiba pulls a low blow to win, loses to the Big Bad, and Yugi and Atem have to save everyone. Now Kaiba is begrudgingly in debt to Yugi and Atem for saving his little brother.

The next card tournament is run by Kaiba himself, since he is the CEO of a large and powerful gaming company. Yugi/Atem and Kaiba are distinctly rivals at this point, helping each other out as necessary while trying to cram their opposing viewpoints down each other’s throats in between assists. Kaiba is once again soundly defeated by Atem, and Atem claims it is because Kaiba is still fueled by anger. Kaiba leaves to carry out his dream and sort himself out.

The last time they “meet”, Atem has already been sent off to the afterlife, his duty complete. Kaiba proceeds to lose his shit. He digs up the Millennium Puzzle, holds a tournament to force Yugi into bringing Atem back, and generally dials up his obsession up to 11. It ends ambiguously with Yugi moving on and having grown up through his interactions with Atem, Atem still dead, and Kaiba jumping dimensions to the afterlife to challenge his rival one more time for his own closure.

Character personality:
If Kaiba could be described in one word, it would be ‘extra’. He’s the teenage CEO of a multi-million dollar gaming corporation with a flare for fancy gadgets (that he designed himself), equally fancy trenchcoats, and jumping out of planes as a way to open card game tournaments. He’s arrogant to the point where one of his favorite insults is “mediocrity” because how dare someone just be average. He’s a control freak who can’t stand the thought of destiny because his future will be created by his own two hands and no one else’s. He’s abrupt, rude, and frankly fairly unpleasant to be around in many circumstances. But underneath all of that prickly exterior, Kaiba does have the capacity to care about some things outside his own personal perfectionism.

Kaiba cares about his younger brother, Mokuba. After their parents died they were sent to an orphanage. Kaiba protected Mokuba from bullies and adamantly refused to be adopted unless it was a package deal. At the young age of ten, Kaiba told his brother Mokuba (five at the time) that he would be Mokuba’s father and to never show weakness because that’s how people destroy you. Kaiba would do anything for Mokuba and would stop at nothing to ensure his safety. When Mokuba’s kidnapped, he jumps in a helicopter and flies off to rescue him. When Yugi gets in his way of Kaiba saving Mokuba, he threatens to jump of a castle and kill himself if Yugi doesn’t forfeit the duel. Even when Mokuba tells him to let go of his anger and return to the smiling happy brother he used to know, Kaiba tries so hard to be that for Mokuba (even if he sucks at it).

Kaiba cares about his company, Kaiba Corporation. In order to secure a better life for himself and his little brother Mokuba, Kaiba won a game of chess against Gozaburo Kaiba so that the CEO would adopt both of them. Gozaburo Kaiba owned a weapons company and groomed Kaiba (traumatically) for six years to be his heir. When Kaiba was able to win control of Kaiba Corporation from his stepfather, Gozaburo jumped out the window. Losing meant death after all according to Gozaburo’s teachings. The lack of closure left Kaiba with tons of emotional baggage to sort through. On one hand, there is the side of Kaiba that converts Kaiba Corporation into a gaming company and makes amusement parks which allow orphans free admission. He seems to be trying to make up for his own troubled childhood without quite knowing how to approach the problem. On the other hand, he also uses that same company to keep surveillance on the entire city, which allows him to track the whereabouts and kidnap someone that can magically teleport. So, his attitude is still very much only the strongest survive and if he outsmarts someone, he can do whatever he wants to them. It’s warring emotions of trying to do a good thing while simultaneously punishing others for being weak.

Kaiba is obsessed with his rival, Atem. Kaiba embraces danger and high stakes competition and battling against someone on his level. Atem is all of those things. On their first meeting, Atem challenged Kaiba to a card game with a twist - all the monsters would come alive. And unlike the majority of people who cowered in fear during one of Atem’s early Shadow Games, Kaiba was thrilled by it. So thrilled he based his own holographic technology Solid Vision on it. Robbed of his proper closure with defeating Gozaburo, Kaiba focused his fixation on Atem instead. After every defeat, Kaiba picked himself up off the ground, made himself stronger and challenged Atem again and again. They fought and backhandedly supported each other through obstacle after obstacle. Well, they did until Atem returned to the afterlife without telling Kaiba. While the rest of the cast moved on, Kaiba became obsessed. He dug up the Millennium Puzzle that used to house Atem’s soul after years of mocking that “occult bullshit”. He built a space station for the sole purpose of solving said puzzle as fast as possible. He even dimension jumped to the afterlife to challenge his rival one last time. Once Kaiba finds something he deems worthy, he clings to it like a steel clamp and doesn’t let go, no matter how impossible the odds are stacked against him. No matter if it logically can’t be done. Kaiba doesn’t accept no for an answer.

Kaiba cares and is also unhealthily obsessed about his Blue Eyes White Dragon. As a trading card, the Blue Eyes White Dragon represents Kaiba’s ideal - raw power, a very defined aesthetic, rare and coveted. The actual Blue Eyes White Dragon represents Kaiba’s conscious, light and pride. She’s there to judge him when he’s being overly cruel and to stop him when he’s doing something monumentally stupid. In a sense, Blues Eyes is Kaiba’s moral compass. In return, Kaiba shows her off and builds jets that look like her and doesn’t allow anyone else in the world to use the Blue Eyes White Dragon but himself. Her raw power is his to wield. Her aesthetic is wrapped up in his - blues and whites and metallics and flairs on everything. And Kaiba gets thoroughly butthurt whenever she loses. Because he’s Kaiba -- an obnoxious winner but even more of a sore loser.

Character in Imeeji:
The Yu-Gi-Oh! canon fortunately gives us a look into what is the basically the essence of Kaiba’s “soul” when we compare him to his previous reincarnation, High Priest Seto. Compared to Kaiba’s “raised himself because there was no competent adult around” background, Seto was brought into a group of six fairly close High Priests/Priestesses who learned to work in harmony. As a result, he knows how to work on a team even if he still insists on being the best and taunting his teammates when they underperform. I plan to use the similarities of the two characters as Kaiba’s base personality in Imeeji.

Kaiba will always be competitive, confrontational, and a show-off. No matter what team he’s on, he’s going to dial it up to 11 immediately, want to win the most points, do the most lives, and rack up powers as fast as he can. Basically he’s going to be that annoying min/maxer on his team, making sure he has acquired all the important skills first before wasting any points on something as frivolous as memories. Kaiba always wants to be at his personal best and insist that his teammates do the same. Any teammate who can live up to his standard will be treated with respect, and anyone who doesn’t will be treated like garbage. How soft or hard or crazy Kaiba becomes on top of that is really going to depend on the team dynamic. If the team is a group of backstabbers, he’ll backstab with the best of them. If they are a tight cohesive unit, then he will be the trademark asshole yet dependable teammate. If they are all about peace and compromise and love--- well, then he actually might go crazy.

Kaiba will be unconsciously looking for two types of people within Imeeji. First, he will be looking for a person(s) to be a tough love guardian for. In all reincarnations, Kaiba attaches to a person who he is willing to protect recklessly with his life. The second relationship he will be looking for is a worthy rival or partner. Interpersonally, those are the the two connections that have significance to Kaiba. Without that, he’ll feel strangely unbalanced and either become more of an asshole or more of a workaholic (or both).

future is now offers a variety of development possibilities for Kaiba that are both new and comforts from home. First, it gives Kaiba technology powers, and Kaiba loves technology and building things so he’d always have something to do. Second, the stereotypical person on the team offers a lot of potential teammate dynamics for Kaiba. Is there a mad scientist in the house? Great, they can build cool shit together. Are there people who don’t follow societal norms? Awesome, Kaiba is right there with them doing whatever he wants. And people who drop non sequiturs all day? Yes, please. Please give Kaiba someone to witty banter with that won’t get offended. The more intense, the better. The final bonus it is 100% Kaiba’s aesthetic. Even ancient Egyptian Kaiba (Seto) loved metallics and blues and whites and capes.

sensitIV would be an interesting place for Kaiba because it would give him back some of his more extreme traits and ally him with other extreme people. Any team with “obsessive” as a character trait is right up his alley. Having teammates that all had extreme personality traits would help Kaiba be more relatable and open up more. In his canon, he is definitely one of the more “out there” and overly dramatic characters. Also, in canon, due to terrible parenting and being given a punishment game of nightmares, his relationship with sleep is more like a divorce (as in he doesn’t get any). So the power list would be really fun to play with as some of the powers are very nostalgic to Kaiba.

Wild City is just fun because of his obsession with the Blue Eyes White Dragon. It’s not any more complicated than that.

Unit Preferences:
Priority: future is now (1st choice), sensitIV
Acceptable: Wild City, ☆ZRAEL, Heart Soldier Senshi, BAD DEAD=END DEAD
Do not place: alcheME!, avante en guarde, pep!pep!, Taisho Roman Revolution

Voice Samples:
♔ 2 threads, each with at least 10 comments by you, the applicant
Imeeji Test Drive: https://imeeji-backstage.dreamwidth.org/385.html?thread=68481#cmt68481
[PSL] Kaiba and Atem post-canon reunion: https://shishasosei.dreamwidth.org/1351.html?thread=224071#cmt224071