Teapzo

this AU operates on the far extreme "Aku is literally evil incarnate and has no free will to be anything except evil" end of Aku characterizations, because I cooked it up in part as a thought experiment: what would it take to "redeem" (reform?) the most irredeemable interpretation of Aku; and what would the consequences be?

trivial lore note: i did like, at least two whole entire minutes of research before deciding the magical divine artifact that'd change Aku. in ancient Egypt the lotus flower symbolized rebirth and (Aku's nemesis) the sun, hence his new starry appearance; in Hinduism the lotus also represents sun gods, plus spiritual growth via pure beauty growing from the mud; and Odin thumbs-upped Ra & Rama and went "sure guys sounds great." the lotus will never come up again, it's done its job

Usually characters who were brainwashed (in a magic/scifi way) forget their past life or think they've always thought like this; this always seemed like the lazy route to me. Making a brainwashed character remember exactly what they once believed & felt and grapple with KNOWING they're brainwashed is narratively harder, but fascinating.

I wanted to represent Aku's alignment shift via recolor to "the opposite" of what he was before; but the show's "white = good, black = evil" motif is 😬 so I was NOT turning him white; and only shifting his face's colors looked dumb.

So I went with representing his shift not as "changed from black to [something else]" but rather "he's still darkness/void; changed from black hole (nothingness/death) to night sky (everything/life)."

(I'm still not 100% settled on his design. I change it every time I draw him lmao.)

And representing his change not as "he's the opposite of what he was" but rather "he's the same thing he was but in an opposite way" fits his role in this AU:

So now they're stuck with each other and Jack still doesn't have a way back to the past.

Aku knows that several thousand years of destructive laws need to be repealed and countless humanitarian crises need to be addressed—but dwelling on his past evil deeds makes Aku too sick to think. So he's surrendered and made fixing the world Jack's problem. Jack has more good guy experience and everybody likes him better. Really, Aku's doing everyone a favor. (Jack disagrees.)

Now Aku hovers in the background to answer questions about his bureaucracy and pass orders to his bugbot army, and to occasionally do Good Deeds for passersby in need.

When he does good deeds he gives off the same energy as a hostage chained into a bomb vest who's been sent to rob a bank.

He's not a good guy in the same way that Jack is a good guy; Jack has free will and chooses to be good. In the same way that he could not have chosen not to do evil when he was evil incarnate, he cannot choose not to do good now.

Though it's not like he wants to be able to do evil! ... But he knows why he doesn't want to do evil. He remembers being evil.

Being really good at being evil used to give him a rush of satisfaction and pride. Now, whatever satisfaction he might've gotten from doing good is drowned under self-criticism—anything you do now is too little, too late—and shame—remembering everything he did that got the world into this situation—and resentment—remembering how happy he used to be back when he could do things that now horrify him.

It's not all misery, though.

nobody's ever asked to hug aku before. children have never liked him. but after thousands of years of giving off the vibes of Totalitarian Cthulhu, Aku now suddenly gives off the vibes of Barney the Dinosaur having a smoke break: incongruous, tired, and grumpy, and yet somehow extremely approachable and lovable?

"You like children now? I suppose that is a 'good' trait."

"It is neutral, samurai. I have always been fond of children."

"Really??? I've never heard that before."

"No, you would not have. I avoid children. I deal only with adults. And when I go to—when I went to destroy cities and kingdoms, I only directly attacked the elders of that place... and left the children to fate's hands."

"Why...? You mean, even when you were evil, you were protecting them?"

"PROTECTING them?!"

"You avoided them because you were afraid you would harm them?"

"HAAHAHA! You do not understand the mind of pure evil, samurai. No! It is no different from when a kind man avoids someone he does not like for fear he will violate his principles by being unkind. I did not avoid children because I was afraid I would harm them—but because I was afraid I WOULDN'T harm them."

Aku's pretty open about how he used to think; and Jack's somewhat uncomfortably realizing that Aku maybe didn't actually choose whether to be evil.

But the current arrangement can't last forever.

Aku did say, "I would sooner die than see you destroy my world," didn't he?