lenoreacedia’s OOC content

Maybe its a reflection of when he got to each part of the world…? But why wait so long in going from feudal east asia to north america? Don't tell me the ocean was a barrier? 😭

And guess what! I have an answer!

To start with (and you, Person Who Asked This, haven't reached this episode yet, so i'm just gonna give you a minor spoiler): yes, actually, it DID take Aku a long time to conquer the world. There's an episode where we learn that he got a robot army because taking over the world was going too slowly for his tastes. Meaning:

by Aku's own measure, taking over the world took forever. He wasn't "waiting," he was SLOW.

Aku didn't finish conquering the world until sometime AFTER he had a killer robot army. So depending on what era you think Jack was born and how long you think it'll be before we have fully autonomous killer androids, Aku's global conquest took anywhere from 500-1500 years.

The evidence suggests that, until Aku got his robots, he was trying to conquer the world without an army. as in ALONE. as in ONE GUY. is it any wonder he took so long?

if an invader conquers a city, sets up an oppressive government and establishes a military force to enforce its new laws, and then the government+military moves 100 miles away because the government+military is just one single person with laser eyes, do you know what that means? that city is now un-conquered, my friend.

true, along with himself Aku also had a smattering of dubiously solid shadow demon things he can summon up—but they're provably easy to destroy, it would not be hard to mount a revolt against them if the civilians knew that Aku himself wasn't around to back them up.

plus a few bounty hunters and eventually scientists he could bribe into working for him, but like?? unlike every other human population, Aku has no "home nation"—or city, or tribe, or even so much as a goddamn polycule—on whose loyalty he can unquestionably depend. literally no one, anywhere, wants him in charge! every human who works for him does so either out of greed, or fear.

and the fearful ones will be looking for an opportunity to escape or undermine him; and the greedy ones will only stick around until the incalculable atrocities aku's committing finally get to their consciences, or else they catch wind of Aku's tendency to backstab his hired labor rather than pay them.

Without a loyal army, he's fighting an uphill battle. and he didn't have that army for centuries. not only is everyone in front of him trying to stop his advance any way possible, but also everyone behind him is trying to escape his grasp. he probably had to keep backtracking to re-conquer places.

the ocean wasn't the barrier; the process of trying to conquer a WHOLE FUCKING PLANET, and ALONE, was the barrier.

So: that's all stuff that can be plausibly extrapolated from canon.

Now we're moving into headcanon territory, which is only tangentially related to your questions but I've wanted to share this for a while: My Big Fancy Map Of How I Think Aku Conquered The World!!

actually i headcanon the flute thing is because his robot line was modeled after X-49, The First Robot In Aku's Army With Emotions; and because they're all running operating systems based off of X-49's emotions chip, half of them also acquire X-49's love of jazz. The programmers have no idea where the Loving Jazz subroutine is. Baffling but fascinating. So Scaramouche got his face remodeled so he could play jazz music; and fucking Harlequin already called dibs on the trumpet so Scaramouche had to pick another instrument if he wanted to join the robot jazz band.

using the flute for combat came later.

Anyway I think it's something between a piercing and a prosthetic that simply isn't analogous to humans.

It's a major invasive restructuring of his head that totally changes how his entire face works, possibly even alters how he makes speech—did he have to switch from talking out of a speaker to talking out of actual mechanical vocal cords in order to get the right air flow? Were his cooling fans restructured to force air through his throat and simulate air from lungs? Did he have a "throat" beforehand or was his neck just solid with no tube through it? This ain't no piercing.

but also—unlike both a piercing AND an amputation—if Scaramouche thought it sucked he could just reverse it. like. He's a machine. He might have his original jaw at home in a drawer and be able to switch it out with a screwdriver. Even if it does require a specialist to change the parts, so what! Hack half his face off and then replace it with new parts! Do as much damage as you want! What's the risk to Scaramouche, is he gonna bleed to death? Is he gonna scar? No! Hell, if you mess up his face TOO much you can just upload his brain into a brand new head and install it on his body!

so to him i think getting a modded mouth is more like buying a car. Like, it's probably expensive; the cost might be so high as to prohibit him doing it every weekend, he's gotta save up for it; unless he's a millionaire this is probably a major lifestyle decision that will impact his day-to-day life for at least the next few years; but like,, if it sucks and he doesn't like it, he can just get rid of it as soon as he's saved up enough to trade in the old one and buy a new one. No permanent alterations to his life. Bank account aside, the decision is 100% reversible.

Like does the giant tree need sunscreen or sunglasses? Probably not but it can't hurt! Inexplicable swimwear for everybody! Is that a palm tree or your boyfriend? Either way what a nice shade it provides! Maybe go for some ice cream later!

I hope this was helpful and just the right amount of stupid!

Sunblock, you say?

As it happens, scaraku beach episode was the original idea behind this picture. i didn't draw scaramouche because i wanted the focus to be on the visual of aku in the water staring out at the ocean, chilling menacingly. inactive, yet threatening by his mere presence. like the monolith in 2001 a space odyssey. but scaramouche is also there in my heart. riding aku's shoulder or something.

I've mentioned before that Scaramouche is regularly trying to drag Aku on mental health grass-touching excursions dates outside his tower; and one of his most successful tactics is "you own this planet and you never even enjoy it, let's go look at some nature."

so yes aku can be persuaded to visit the beach and terrify the tourists. he's not interested in doing traditional beach vacation things—no swimsuits or towels or umbrellas, no surfing or volleyball, no cute beachside cocktails—but he'll relax and enjoy the view. maybe turn into an octopus and enjoy the view from underwater a while.

scaramouche is up for traditional beachside activities and touristing. he's waterproof, he can handle stuff in the ocean. but he's here for aku. if aku wants to vibe on the beach then they're vibing on the beach.

so a beach day ends up looking like,

and yes: if the beach is too sunny for aku's tastes, he WILL ruin the weather for everyone else.

if they stay for more than one day Scaramouche is getting the nearest beachside hotel room possible so he's got a place to plug in his charging cable at night, and Aku's sleeping curled up on the beach right under Scaramouche's window. "couldn't aku just shrink into a form small enough to share the hotel room?" yes but he doesn't want to. he wants to sleep on the beach with the sand and open air and surf sounds. it's his beach because it's his planet so he can do that and nobody can stop him.

this is perplexing and alarming to the locals. not only has it been a generation since aku was last seen out in public, but no one's ever heard of him just, like... hanging out. as if he's on vacation. aku doesn't take vacations, that's like the moon taking a vacation, or air taking a vacation. it doesn't work like that.

aku doesn't mind dozens of worried locals staring at him as he sleeps as long as none of them disturb him and none of them have a magic sword.

i'm drawing a thing and NOBODY will pay attention to the fish, so i'm making all of you look at it now.

Metro Man was not loved growing up in a way that mattered. His adopted father was clearly very absent, and while we don't know much about his family, their relationship seems superficial. Because of this, his sense of duty to the world is also superficial, hence his boredom.

Hal wasn't raised with power. He gained it and was shown how to use it by a 'space dad' who only taught him power and not love. Hence, he sees it only as a grasping means to an end.

A reminder that sell-buy dates or best-used-by dates are not the same as expiration dates.

The website puts a link to the USDA site which links to foodsafety dot gov who really wants you to use the app, but you can bypass it.

Also a link to the Canadian government's advisory on best-before dates.

but it's an entirely new level of tragic when somebody you've actually spoken to gets turned into a bot account. it's like peeking at a zombie apocalypse through the window and realizing one of the shambling corpses was your friend.

and then the zombie catches sight of you, lurches up to your window, and shouts through the glass that they accidentally reported your account to tumblr and you'll be deactivated unless you click this link.

if you get something like this ↑ they're gonna follow up by instructing you to contact tumblr support on discord and give you contact info; or they're gonna link a website that looks sort of like tumblr support and say you have to email them; or any variety of "you must now contact tumblr, here is how you contact tumblr."

whatever they send you, it Does Not lead to tumblr. it leads to the master zombie that bit them and inducted them into the ranks of the undead, and will bite you the second they have your email and password. i might be confusing zombies and vampires. anyway,

it's easier to fall for these messages because the blog doesn't LOOK like a bot blog, because it ISN'T a bot blog. it's a normal person's blog that got accessed by a bot, meaning the blog's content CLEARLY looks like a real active user when you click on it. and yes—it might even be a blog you already know. sometimes bots like this go down a blog's DMs or reblogs and message people they've previously interacted with.

A crackship isn't just any ship that makes you go, "Eh, I don't see it." A crackship is absolutely WILD in concept. A crackship is the one that makes your friends look at you with the beginnings of existential horror. It's the one where they wave a circle round you thrice and close their eyes in holy dread, for you on honeydew hath fed and drunk the milk of paradise.

My crowning achievement is from Invader Zim: one of the Planet Jacker aliens who tried to steal the earth to throw into their dying sun as firewood; and a goldfish that appeared in one scene (in a different episode) to accidentally flop into a guy's water glass and cause him to choke when he drank it.

though justifying Uchiha Sasuke and Sailor Moon came pretty close.

So SotW giving them a secret history where they collaborated, inspired each other, and fought over custody of their son? That felt like crackship energy.

But it was only able to carry that energy because, when Nick Roche wrote SotW, he was building upon 30 years of Transformers history and lore that had already established these characters and set out how implausible their interactions were. SotW had the same relationship to a well-established canon that a fanfic has to its canon.