#Gozabura Kaiba

[shoot-of-corruption]

🗣 + Seto

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OUF... Seto Kaiba has always been a difficult case for me. I realize that most of the YuGiOh cast went through terrible trauma at some point in their life, Seto Kaiba, too, had this doubtful pleasure enforced on him.

I think at some point he lead a nice good life, somewhere with parents that very much loved him and his little brother. But as this things happen they never seem to last and something has robbed from him the people he felt safe around. Firstly that certainly is still inside of him. I am very certain he remembers those times, being happy with a family of four members.

Growing up the older sibling and losing his parents though, wouldn't just cause him grief, it would also cause him to grow especially cunning and resourceful - he had to take care of his brother now of course! Not only was he increasingly cunning about giving Mokuba the best life, he also completely ignored what grief it would cause himself. Being adopted by Gozaburo Kaiba... cannot ever have been easy. It would definitely cause Mokuba to live better, it would also lessen the fear of being separated because some dumb couple simply didn't want to adopt two children - and brothers at that.

While that Damocles sword was swinging over his head, he had to perform things he had never even dealt with. Brain acrobatics, planning every second of his life through, being punished for transgressions and failure. It must have been extremely rough on a person who was no doubt extremely gifted, but had never lived under such strict regiment. I think all was well until Gozabura enforced that he couldn't see Mokuba, if his performance wasn't excellent.

I think that was the moment where Seto Kaiba decided one old geezer had to go. He had given him everything to work with, while thinking he was still in control, because he completely underestimated this child... merely even a teenager. And I can see how through all of this abuse and grooming and terrible cold behaviour towards him, being forced to go through this out of love that was perpetually beaten out of him would cause him to become the person he was in season zero and also that the death of his adoptive father was nothing but a triumph. They could live together now, Mokuba and him, but nothing was really feeling good anymore. He had been made into a shell of a person and the love for his brother just waasn't the same anymore and that in turn caused Mokuba to become colder as well.

While Kaiba went through his mind crush, Mokuba would definitely throw his antagonizing firmly aside to just hope for the survival of his brother and everything going awry after that, Seto Kaiba, who had finally woken up and found that things (especially brothers) hadn't been left where they should be, had [with the help of Yami]broken through the teachings of his father and his emotional and mental abuse.

I am always impressed by how far the lengths are that certain characters go... and while Kaiba seems to be just a complete ASSHOLE on the outside, definitely still following the teachings of Gozaburo when it comes to skill and the job of being a CEO, his goals are simply completely different. Not only does he kick the old man with pleasure, while he rotates in his grave, he just uses his potential to give people joy and earn money with that.

He has built himself a perfect living space already and now everything seems to be in order, but something or another is still ingrained in him. The simple and odd need to win at all costs. He has gone through so much and in his eyes DESERVES the position of being at the top, everybody had thrown rocks in his way, to hurt HIM personally and then along comes some little dwarf, stealing his victory. And that - my friends - he was simply unable to forget and it grew into a new obsession.

On a total he is simply a fascinating character. He has his flaws, but works around them. He is cunning, but refuses to see solutions that lie before his feet. He built a cold surface, but would sell his soul for his brother in an instant. He may be a little emotionally stunted, but I think he is just performing for himself after that mind crush experience. There are things he is very unwilling to budge on... and he does only for Mokuba (and sometimes Yuugi/Yami) because they really NEED to stay around him, so he can have access at all times. X'D

Seto Kaiba may behave like an old cold bastard, but even he needs his support system here ;D

[dollythots]

Rewatching Yu-Gi-Oh season 3.... Noah, needed help honestly. He never got that shit, Gozabura was menace, and deserved to die honestly. Kaiba calling him a spoiled brat, was giving hater vibes (in my opinion) he should have realized Noah was another victim of his adopted father, and tried to help him. But we know Kaiba ain't good for that.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep 23 S3: Always Put Guns on Your Satellites

Ah, I’m finally back at my home computer after a little hiatus there. In case you are curious, I went to San Fransisco and then spent about 2 weeks trying to find a single parking spot. But, I’m back in my normal place now, where trash trucks aren’t driving around, breaking the speed barrier at 3 AM and where I don’t have to parallel park at a 45 degree incline. I got my fill of good food, chilling out, getting completely rained out by a freak storm in May, and walking about a mile vertically to go three feet horizontally, it’s time to sit back, relax, and talk about an anime that came out 20 years ago.

Y’all...what were even doing 2 weeks ago? It really does feel like three years.

If memory serves, we are currently in the midst of not one, but 3 Apocalypses. Lets just place em down in case you forgot

1.) The Millennium Item Apocalypse, where if one person gets all 7 (or was it 10?) of the items, the world freakin ends. This is briefly on hold because Bakura, our Millennium item enthusiast, hella died about 24 episodes ago and none of these people have brought it up or tried to contact any sort of governing authority even though Yugi and Tea both witnessed the murder about 7 hours ago (which, for Marik’s credit, did take place over international waters, touche). So, for now, Bakura’s spirit is kinda holed up in Pharaoh’s puzzle necklace so he’s just...chillaxing.

2.) The God Card Apocalypse, where if one person gets all 3 God Cards, the world freakin ends. Briefly on hold because everyone got stuck in a VR universe, and Marik felt like staying on the blimp instead because I dunno maybe he wanted to take a nap or something.

3.) The Matrix, where Seto’s Dad is going to launch a bunch of machines to trap the entire human race in this VR zone against their will and become a slave to the machine overlords. Somehow this is a thing that has been happening in the background this entire series but has only been revealed like...last episode.

Bro is reminding me that I forgot to mention that all these duel monsters are becoming slowly more and more real but like...eh.

There’s three concurrent Apocalypses right now. Don’t forget. There’s three of them.

Anyway, Seto Kaiba has decided it’s about time he deal with his Daddy issues/prevent the Matrix.

While Kaiba has decided to confront his Father, the rest of the people on this show have no freakin idea what to even do so they’re just arguing with eachother in Domino square and getting no where.

Also, I nearly forgot, Joey can’t even beat up Noah currently because Noah switched places with Mokuba, because this isn’t Yugioh unless we start switching brains like it’s as easy as turning your T-shirt inside out.

Of course, in this case, Mokuba didn’t exactly *switch* places with Noah--Moki’s brain is just...floating around this world somewhere. I don’t know if he got stuck in a Monkey or if he’s just...dead...but it just makes absolutely no sense to me how your soul can get sucked into a VR game and now lives tron-style in VR while someone else steers your body which isn’t any more connected to the machine itself, so I’ll just assume he’s dead. It’s just easier to say Moki died, it’s happened so many times to this kid at this point.

Basically, Mokuba is here, but in not-spirit. In every way but spirit.

And about those brain pods--does Yugi’s pod take up 2x the RAM because he’s got two people in that bean or has Noah seriously not noticed this like at all? because there's two dudes in one pod and Noah has just acted like that’s a completely normal thing that can happen.

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, the A team has sort of all turned into the B team because only Kaiba’s can really have any active involvement at this part of the arc, so Yugi decides to take a break and enter brain fort. Which, I assume he does just whenever he’s bored. It’s just kind of weird when he decides to do this, without warning, in front of a large group of other people.

Anyway, it’s Yugi, so he somehow turns what is so clearly Kaiba’s problem into this selfish need to carry the torch by himself for no reason.

Like, Yugi is the main character--I get that--he’s gotta be some sort of moral standard because this is a protagonist in a kid’s show, but it is such a stretch for him to still think that there’s any good left in Noah after all the events of this arc. It just comes off that every time Yugi tries to see good in Bakura, or Marik, or the Kaiba family even, he’s maybe doing it out of guilt.

Like Yugi isn’t naive at this point - he set a guy on fire once with Russian Whiskey in a freakin burger diner, and even if you don’t consider Season Zero canon, he also set PaniK on fire and left him to die in the woods (and that nut ABSOLUTELY died), so it just doesn’t make sense to me that he’d helplessly fall victim to a thousand evil assholes who pretended to be his friend. Instead, it’s sort of like Yugi’s trying to overcompensate for the amoral weirdo residing in about 98% of his brain right now.

Overall, TL;DR, Yugi is kind of a weird guy.

Love him, but he’s sort of a walking disaster with some very selfish motivations and I forget. Not about the walking disaster part of course, that part is like clearly very obvious, especially when we find out his grand masterplan.

Also, this happened,

Again, I would be absolutely fine if Tristan just remained like this, talking like the librarian out of Terry Pratchett, taking Serenity to prom just like this.

Anyway, these guys had absolutely nothing to do, so the show invented something on the fly.

If you could copy-paste any card, why not just copy-paste 24 Exodias? Like I get they don’t have God cards here but they have all the other ones, right?

Like I don’t understand the danger here, you can just keep playing cards infinitely because there’s no rules when you’re outside the game. Just keep slapping stuff on your duel disk like it’s that fanmade Yugioh game that they made for real life VR headsets. Youknow the one that was so bad that it became like a viral video, where everyone is a really low poly Yugioh character but they only have like 4 character models, and for some reason one of the four is Yugi but as a girl in a miniskirt? And they’re on the blimp for some reason, and none of them can stand up straight so they kind of duck walk everywhere? That one? The one with Joey saying “It does what it do!”

Like I feel like if even I saw that video show up on my twitter, everyone else has seen that video of just this really bad VR game and I don’t remember what it was called but feel free to google it, it’s a fun 10 minute ride.

Anyway, the mayhem of that viral video is kind of what this entire VR arc is turning into. More and more as we break reality and completely ignore the rules, to the point where now we’re just slapping whatever cards on our duel disk--cards we shouldn’t even freakin have because we identified at the beginning of this season that no one has a deck here.

But anyway, back to the only person who got out of the VR zone, lets see what Noah’s up to. Ah, the real world, where all we ever had to worry about was magic.

This password was so obtuse even Noah, who is literally a computer, forgot it. Wow.

So now that Noah has escaped the computer, he decides to walk down the hall to log onto yet another computer so he could use his hands instead of...however he was using computers in the digital zone.

He could have done this from within the Orb, right? Like this part didn’t really require him stealing Mokuba’s body? We know he’s already connected to Kaiba’s network so he could become ascended and open the Door of Truth, so I’m assuming it would also have the ability to just log onto this computer in his own ship?

Noah does seem to be just winging it through this entire arc, but he could have done this sequence, and THEN stolen Moki, and THEN hightailed it out of there. It would have saved him some problems later. But wtv, lets hack a satellite, that good ol Kaiba pastime.

Also, fun fact, Kaiba went through all that work to get rid of all the weapons and then forgot about his space stash?

Like was there just SO MANY weapons that he overlooked it, or is he just keeping this here, just to have? Just in case, youknow? Like why does Seto Kaiba have access to The Bomb? Why would we leave a horrible nuclear missile in the hands of a teenager who freaks every time he plays cards? This child who is so unstable, that he knows he was married to a paper card in a previous life but doesn’t feel like talking about it? That crazy kid?

Like usually we have a set of two keys for this type of thing and two different people turn the key at the same time, we don’t just leave them in the Seto Kaiba headquarters with the kid who turned all cards into guns. Are all of Seto’s handlers actually just spies from other countries trying to keep Seto from nuking the planet? Is that the real answer to who the hell Roland is? Is he just a nice spy that makes sure Seto plays enough cards to forget that he could blow up the world if he sneezed too much and pressed the wrong key loading up Duel Disk Myspace?

The implications.

Meanwhile, Kaiba is the only one on this show smart enough to just walk into Gozaburo’s office, where I assume this guy has just been hanging out the entire arc.

Yep, that’s right, they’re going to do a card duel with a chess champion because this show has to shoehorn in those cards. Just one more card fight. Just cuz. Just one more completely pointless card fight between these two people, to show...that Seto can beat his Dad? Seto’s beaten his Dad like every opportunity he’s had to beat his Dad I don’t...exactly know why this was necessary. Would’ve been a much bigger emotional beat for Seto to have just walked away, but that would have also been a much different Seto than the Seto we have.

So basically, if Seto loses, Gozaburo threatens to erase Seto’s mind entirely, which we’ve already pointed out has been so wiped at this point that it would be all of 700 KB and it would just be a single corrupted pixel picture of a dragon.

Anyways, Marik finally conquers his greatest enemy.

Oh. OK. This is a thing he can do now. Welcome back to the show, Marik.

Anyway, Marik has decided it’s high time for him to just go flippen spaz and start breaking stuff. For no reason. I don’t think he fully comprehends that he’s underwater and should not blow up the boat.

Or maybe he FULLY comprehends that? Either answer for him would feel correct.

Also, while I don’t cover cards here, Kaiba’s Dad has decided that the only way to beat his son was to pretend he’s Yugi Muto and reenact the pilot.

It was weird. It was sort of like watching someone audition for a role they don’t have.

Lets go back to Noah.

I knew this arc was going kinda long but how did they end up in freakin Guam???

Marik, who has no concept of technology because he grew up in a tomb and is currently possessed by an ancient force of evil, is still able to recognize a good countdown clock when he sees one. Before he bashes it to pieces because of course he can.

Marik almost saved everyone else’s ass, but unfortunately doesn’t understand that the monitor is not actually attached to the workings of the computer. Much like my Mother.

Bro brings up that this a very Metal Gear thing to only use helicopters to travel over the ocean and hot damn we got yet another Metal Gear reference in just before this arc closes. These weird war crime children.

Ps I like that they drew in the shadow of the bangs across Moki’s eyes as if that would somehow make Moki look sinister. lol.

But, much like the Grinch, Noah’s heart grew...well, it grew.

I wouldn’t go as far to say it grew even a full size, but youknow it...kinda made a weird little fart and bloated a little bit.

So like with Tristan turning into a monkey, it does seem a lot like Noah is just turning into Mokuba and that’s why he’s decided to save everyone. Least in my mind that’s what it looks like. Maybe if he really did take Yugi’s body, Noah would have lasted maybe 5 seconds before being doubled over with endless anxiety and guilt. Would’ve solved a lot of their problems.

I’ve been watching a cat while commuting 4 hours a day and this is actual footage of what my charger cable looked like after the cat went Marik on me and decided the cable deserved to die at 3AM after the freakin SF garbage truck went supersonic and woke up the entire neighborhood.

(the cat is fine, btw, we went and hid all the other cords, dumbass cat)

So what does Noah do? He decides...it’s time I fessed up. And he does it in the worst way, during a time when literally everyone else in the VR world is fighting multiple card enemies/their Dad.

Way to be, Noah, way to be. On the other side of town, Yugi was visibly sweating and had this facial of expression of like “Wow, maybe Noah is just a freakin psycopath?” Which, I dunno, kind of seems like the sort of thing we figured out 23 episodes ago, right at the same moment we met Noah.

Anyway, that’s all for this episode. Really seems like the only person who actually DID anything was Noah who just...decided to throw a bunch of missiles directly at himself because he can’t think things through. I guess Marik did some stuff too, but honestly, I have no idea if Marik thoroughly understood that he just guaranteed that he was absolutely going to be destroyed by rockets. That Loki.

Hey if Noah DOES manage to destroy everyone on this boat, he prevents 3 whole apocalypses and that would default him to hero status. He’ll kill off like 3 major villains and maybe even Shadi. And who doesn’t want Shadi to die (who I assume is already dead but wtv) I mean that’s not going to happen, but like...way to try and save the world Noah, you’re doing your best life.

Anyway, if you just got here, here’s a link to read these recaps from the very beginning, fair warning, there’s 2.5 seasons.

[hantheheart]

I am Mad™ and the only one to blame is myself

Ya’ll might remember this blog used to have like 8 muses and three of them were Yu-Gi-Oh OCs. The one I wish to talk about today is Caroline, puncher of faces and darling angel of my soul. 

I gotta rant, read more for your.. safety??? Comfort??? I dunno, let me roll.

So, when I first made Caroline, I knew 2 things

She was going to be friends with the Kaiba bros

She was going to die a tragic death

Now, I have no idea WHY I decided she was going to die tragically or HOW, but I knew she was going to. Note that I didn’t actually plan on AH-Ra existing at the time, she just... sorta appeared, like they were meant to exist together.

Anyways, Caroline does what she does, has her backstory with the bros (may have accidentally started a protest on Gozaburo’s front lawn), and did her bit through the series with Yugi and the gang, including her father dying not long after Yugi defeated Pegasus, and awkwardly thinking Ah-Ra’s feelings for Atem were her feelings for Yugi. (Spirits possessing people bullshit, shut up....)

ANYWAYS! Yesterday at work, I was playing around with some old ideas I had never really worked on with Caroline, i.e: her story after the series ended. There are three plot points in her life that I had set in stone once she had graduated high school with Yugi and Friends™:

She becomes Seto’s secretary/assistant/ something that involves literally following him around all day

There’s a incident with the media hounding Seto to get a Significant Other that leads to Caroline and Seto “Fake Dating™” that eventually turns into “Oh Shit We Are Actually Dating™”

Caroline gets MURDERED in a hostage situation.

I never had any solid details for any of these point, they were just... Going to happen at some point and I didn't know how. BUT! Today, while I was cleaning up at work, I was struck with inspiration and the details suddenly existed!

(I’m gonna try and abridge this as best I can.)

So, we have Caroline and the Kaiba bros doing stuff, hanging out at her apartment cause they’re Tired™ of the media hanging around the boys’ house, when there’s some news reporter going off about they “found Seto Kaiba’s secret girlfriend!!!!111!!!” or some shit, while another reporter claims he has a boyfriend or something and there’s gossip reporters arguing about his love life and Seto is just #DONE with the media. Caroline, being his ever stellar best friend, suggests they pretend to “date”.

He objects but then she says they be “very vague” about it so the media makes even more of a ruckus and TA-DA! Free advertisement, he stays relevant to the public eye, and some other things. He looks a bit confused, but she reminds him she got a degree in Human Resources and Public Affairs so she could do this kind of crap for him in the first place. Mokuba agrees cause she already is kind of living at their house and vice versa so why not?

They start up their shtick: spending time together outside of work, standing absurdly close to each other, eating together in public, literally anything to drive the media nuts that isn’t ABSOLUTE CONCRETE PROOF of romance. Anytime either of them is asked about it, they respond vaguely or say nothing. Mokuba just giggles and feeds the media even more tidbits.

Some reporter gets too curious and digs up old info on Caroline, specifically how she stood outside the Kaiba manor every day after school and on weekends for a solid three and a half months after the bros were adopted in an attempt to check up on them or see them in general. It somehow spurred the idea that she was protesting Kaiba Corp and Gozaburo, but no one ever actually paid attention to her actual intentions. Somebody links Seto’s “New Interest” to the old article and WHAM!

“SETO KAIBA DATING GIRL WHO PROTESTED GOZABURA KAIBA 10+ YEARS AGO!!!!” headlines on every god damn gossip magazine, website and talk show on the planet. Caroline and Seto find this impossibly hilarious because of how wrong it is but the Plan™ is still going.

A few months or so of this charade later and they’re chilling together when Caroline asks Seto “Are we... actually dating now?” Neither seems to know what to think of the situation, but decide they might as well roll with it. It’s not like much has changed about how they act together so Fuck It™.

Eventually, Yugi and the Gang ask Caroline what’s up with her and Seto and she shrugs and says “I dunno, but I guess we’re kinda a thing or something.” Cue Joey, Duke and Tristan trading bet money about Who Called It and How Long Will It Last?

At some point in their late 20′s, the actually get married. It’s almost as much of a surprise to them as it is to their friends (which is literally still just The Dweeb Squad+ because man are these kids bad at making friends). It’s small, dorkishly tacky and held on Kaiba manor grounds.

The only actual change in the relationship between the newly weds is that they kiss sometimes now.

Now comes the “fun” bits.

Caroline and Mokuba handle everything to do with press now so Seto gets to do his thing and not have to attend five bazillion Press Meetings every time he makes something. He has the live recordings playing so he can watch the two most important people in his life do what they do best and silently gloat to himself over how amazing they are. (Don’t tell me he doesn’t love to gush about the people he cares about, even if it’s just to himself. He’s that much of a dork, I feel that in my soul). They eat up the attention and handle it so well that he’s always just beaming stupidly to himself as he tinkers with some gadget or blueprint for something probably Blue Eyes related.

In the most recent one, they’re telling the world of the new Kaiba land the three of them had been working on since before the Fake Dating™ thing happened. He’s busy tinkering away, listening to Mokuba and Caroline talk about the new things they were going to build for the park when someone screams.

He looks up and pales. Caroline’s being held at gunpoint and Mokuba’s trying to get free of some thug in ski mask’s grip. The thugs are shouting, demanding who even cares what as rage seethes into Seto’s mind. This was the one DAMN thing he thought he’d never have to see happen again.

He’s out of the room and shouting for Roland to get a chopper ready before the thugs even finish their spiel.

He’s on a motorcycle and at the place they’d demanded before Roland’s even airborne so he’s gonna have to stall, not long, but long enough. He’s pissed and ignoring the 20-somethign calls he’s gotten from Yugi and the who even knows how many more he’s gotten from the rest of the Dweeb Squad, wanting to help get Caroline and Mokuba back with him. Seto Kaiba is gonna rescue his brother and wife on his own if he has break his own damn legs to do so.

There’s some back and forth yelling with the thugs, though Seto started it by shouting they just hand themselves in upon opening the door. He of course, demands to see that Caroline and Mokuba are actually here and alive. So help him, if they’re hurt in anyway, he’s gonna start breaking things- 

The thugs bring two people with bags on their heads and reveal that it is indeed Caroline and Mokuba, but they’re both gagged and- shit did they drug Caroline? Mokuba’s squirming to get loose and growling but she’s swaying, just struggling to stay on her feet.

Calvary arrives and Seto starts the exchange. A briefcase of cash for the two of them. He meets the thug in the middle of the room, gives him the briefcase, them pulls both of them as fast as he can back to the door. Gunfire starts up as the thugs realize there’s no cash and his people have guns too so it’s an all out war in an empty warehouse.

They’re almost safe when Caroline cries out and falls. He shoves Mokuba towards Roland and rushes back to grab her when he sees the blood. She got shot in the side and it’s bad. He panics, but grabs her and gets to safety.

She’s still crying when the get in the chopper and, as much as it pains him to see this, she’s still alive. As long as she’s breathing, that’s what matters.

She isn’t crying when the finally get at the hospital, but she’s breathing, breathing is good. He’s doing what he can to reason with himself that she’ll be okay even as doctors take her unconscious body from his arms. He’s almost in a daze, being led to the waiting room by Mokuba. These are the best doctors, the ones who took care of Damien when the man was still alive, so they’d better be able to save her. He’d made sure it was the most advanced hospital in the world, they’d better save her.

He’s not even sure how long he sits, staring at the wall, before the Dweeb Squad shows up. They’re gasping for breath and asking questions, but he can’t concentrate on that. He’s too worried to bother with them. They quiet down, Wheeler’s pacing the room and Seto can’t think straight. Mokuba tells them what happened and Yugi’s the only one to try speaking to him. He offers condolences but Seto doesn’t need them.

The CEO is on his feet before the doctor’s even opened the door. He demands to know when she’ll be out, how she is, anything, just give the man some good news!

“She’s gone.”

Seto swears he must not have heard right. Yugi and friends nearly swarm the doctor, voicing that same thought as Seto sinks into the chair again. She can’t be gone. Caroline’s... she can’t be gone. She was so full of a liveliness he couldn't dream of having himself that... she just can’t be gone.

He and Mokuba sit, holding each other for a long while and Seto’s reminded of the day they lost their parents. This feels worse somehow, but they’ll... they’ll make it, just like they did then. He doesn’t cry, not in front of Wheeler and the others. He just feels so empty suddenly.

The funeral is exactly as tacky as she had wanted. “I want archaeologists a thousand years from now to think I was a warrior queen or a goddess.” She’d jokingly told him when they were kids, the sort of morbid humor only a 12 year old Caroline seemed to have. The casket has her precious Armored Griffin engraved on it with some swords and a Blue Eyes.

He doesn’t let himself cry, but Mokuba breaks when the dirt touches the casket. Seto can hardly keep himself standing as Mokuba tries to stifle his sobs by hugging the elder brother. The Dweeb Squad is there and mourning as well. They were the only ones he’d actually invited to the funeral, but the media is somewhere behind them, held back by his ever loyal gang of bodyguards.

A month later, he’s in the hospital again, but for a different reason.

He’s holding the last gift Caroline left him in his arms and he may actually be crying this time. She’d bookmarked a site of baby names a while ago, leaving it marked as Cassandra, so that’s what he’ll call this tiny thing in his arms. She looks just like Caroline, save the bright blue eyes that stare up at him.

The doctors couldn’t save Caroline from bleeding out, but they’d saved the baby he didn’t even know was there, born violently a month before she was due. In fact, the doctors said she would’ve been born today if...

His throat tightens around the words, they hurt too much to even think of. Mokuba seems excited, looking at the baby over his shoulder and beaming. Seto can’t place his emotions anywhere, though he’s sure grief is still lingering in his mind somewhere. But looking down at the black haired girl, he’s suddenly sure of one thing: he’ll take care of this child the way Caroline would have wanted him to, the way she would have if she was.. here.

[randomgamefan]

Oh ABSOLUTELY, add in a bit of sibling rivalry and you have the perfect mix for your Seto. He has self worth and confidence in other places, but being half raised by a man who has such a dedication to duel monsters and teaching them all to play it right has left both brothers with intent to win, but especially Seto.

Also, because I've been thinking about this AU all day, I've had to figure out some ways to rework canon to make sense so now everyone gets to hear about this AU more!

Seto is still very skilled at chess, and in engineering in general! He has amazing ideas, but none he can really put in place due to the general lack of money to be thrown around the houseold.

As I've been trying to figure out how S1 would truly work, my rewatch of S3 has violently reminded me that there is a third Kaiba brother right there for exploitation - Noah. Imagine he doesn't get in an accident, lived on to be a teenager. There's also an easy way that Seto could still get on Gozabura's radar - chess. And well, when you find someone who's better than you, take your son and make him steal the boys plans for holographic technology.

As for why Kaiba corp would switch from a war machine company to a game company, that could be a mix of a lack of war in general and Noah's interest, as well as a huge market in duel monster cards and things that go along with them.

This also makes Noah more of an actual villian than Seto was in the original, as he is indeed fighting for greed and such, but lacks the respectable human part.

Duelist kingdom would be changed quite a bit, as it would center more around Noah and Pegasus teaming up against Yugi and Seto for their own reasons. Pegasus wants the millennium puzzle, and Noah wants back his #1 title from Yugi. Also Noah wants to cover up that he stole Seto's ideas.

Oh, also, Seto knows that the ideas Noah stole are his. This allows for a lot of duelist kingdom to happen, including kidnapping Mokuba, as well as Seto barging in recklessly on his own to save his brother, and getting his soul yoinked. More of a reason for Yugi to fight!

I have more ideas on how S1 would work but I wanna talk about some general stuff for this AU!

I figure Seto would have 1 blue eyes of his own, probably won in a chance game or at a chess tournament or something. This is seperate from their grandpa's blue eyes, so now the Moto family owns 2 of the four blue eyes in existence.

The other two fall in the hands of Noah, who wants the cards more for their rarity and price than anything else.

Joey, Téa, and Tristan are all equally as much Yugi's friends as Seto's. Seto and Yugi are as inseparable as Joey and Yugi. Mokuba is kinda the tagalong younger brother for a while, but they all adopt him as a proper friend, don't worry. Imagine it like Serenity, but with less people drooling over him.

Atem feels strangely offput by Seto, and he can't place why, but does end up getting along with Seto just fine.

Kaiba gets the millennium rod after S3, not for it's powers or anything, but because it seems like he's meant to have it. Because he is. And Yugi supports his brother

Okay that's it I have finished rambling! Thank you @soporificsweetheart for adding onto this because it absolutely made my day askdkjsk

Hmmm YuGiOh AU where Yugi finds an orphanage at a young age and convinces his mom to adopt the new friends he made and Yugi and Seto grow up as twins instead of what actually happens like

Just imagine it. The mix of fluff and angst this could create. Your greatest rival from the past is your brother and you don't know how to cope with that.

Seto can see the change in his brother almost instantly whenever Atem takes over, and can tell something is up even when Yugi can't. Brother instinct.

Also please consiter the idea that Ishizu only sees the canon future with her millennium necklace and invites Seto over to explain what he must do and the future he must bring only to see him dragging along his twin brother the pharaoh. I think I would like that very much yes.

Also Mokuba gets two supportive big brothers.

I see no downsides to this plan.