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birchwoodswolf · 5 months

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Introducing Sorrow Is All The Rage: An Analysis of Sexual Assault in Jay-Centric Skybound Fanfiction

Please note: This is part one of two. TW/CW: sexual assault, mentions of gore.

Part One: The Hook

I was an English major in college; before that, an avid reader, and sometimes a writer. Most of my writing then was in school, specifically for the dry analytical essays I’d turn in for a grade. Over the years, I’ve learned that one of the most important elements of an introduction comes under all sorts of different labels: the attention-grabber, the eye-catcher, the opening statement.

The most memorable - and the one most relevant to this essay - is hook. A shining word, like polished steel; sharp as a knife, short, efficient, meant to draw one’s attention.

You have to start with a hook - the sooner, the better. You have to draw your reader into your embrace. You have to tell them what you’re writing about, but not give it away entirely, because you want there to be mystery to it. But they won’t read it if it’s too mysterious, so you have to make sure they know what the big deal is right away. What better way than to reference something they already know?

Tell a familiar tale - and then twist it at the last second to draw them closer.

Quote someone famous - and then make a new connection pertinent to your work.

Ask a common question - and then provide an answer that’s relatable, but novel, too.

Having trouble? That’s okay - go read some other things you like, things you’d like to emulate, and then take note of what they do and try that out. It doesn’t always matter if your hook is stamped from someone else’s. So long as it’s sharp, it’ll work long enough to get you to the important bit.

When it comes to the world of Skybound angst fanfiction, there are a few special stipulations for the hook. It’s always the same one, although you can get a little creative with the material - polished steel, or wrought iron? Your choice. Provided it’s attached where a certain djinn’s fourth hand should be and is sharp enough to either gouge out an eye or tear off clothing, in certain corners of the scene, it’s a guaranteed success.

Unlike most writing, though, this hook can’t vanish after the opening. You’ve got to keep it there day and night, on deck, in the brig, under silk sheets - just too close to your hero to be comfortable - and into the fight ring so you can drench it in charged blood and violate the protagonist with it after the sun goes down.

Sound familiar? It should - because it’s been happening for at least five years, if not longer. I’m surprised that it took so long for the issue to come to a head, but here we are, and I’m ready to present the question: why is Jay-centric, sexual-assault-loaded fanfiction so prevalent in the Skybound angst fanfiction scene?

Pour a glass of spiked wine and take a seat at the table. We need to talk.

Before I continue, a few notes: I’m not out to villainize anyone who writes this specific flavor of Skybound fiction, and I’m not out to call their work bad, or immoral, or disgusting, or anything else like that. I’ve been around the fanfiction world long enough to understand the concept of don’t like, don’t read, and I respect it wholeheartedly. However, as a Skybound fan, I come face-to-face with this specific trend far too often, and it’s always bothered - and fascinated - me for reasons I want to try and articulate here. No other season of Ninjago has had the same issue, as far as I know - the closest we’ve really gotten is a surge in Lloyrumi-centric sexual assault fics, although that’s way more recent than the Skybound trend I’ll be examining here, and in general is more balanced with more varied works.

I repeat: if you’re one of the writers whose work I cite here as an example, or even just a participant in the scene at large, I’m not coming for you in any way. You are entitled to your creative liberties just as I am to my passion for canon adherence and curiosity about this trend. You want to examine a certain angle; I do, too. That’s why we write, isn't it? And that's why we read, too.

Also: I have no clue if I’ll be able to answer my opening question. This is an attempt, a closer look at some of the possible catalysts, but also a comparison of some of the results that have crept from belowdecks to crowd other works and headcanons out of the scene (as you’ll really see in part two). Do not expect to leave here with a concrete answer. Know that these are my thoughts, built from things I have witnessed firsthand and watched develop in real time. While I may not have been a writer since joining the fandom, I have been a reader, and here long enough to watch all of this go down - and, in recent-ish days, plummet from the sky like stolen land.

A final note: I’m focusing on AO3-based works for this essay, largely because I’ve found those to be the most prolific. Fanfiction.net is pretty quiet these days, and Wattpad is such a mess that I barely ever go there, although I know both of those sites have works that back me up here. I’m also operating on the basic idea that the work’s I’ve examined over the years are all sturdily rooted in canon. Entirely compliant? Absolutely not - but they often begin that way before going completely off the rails.

So, given that I don’t want to deter anyone from pursuing their chosen creative avenues, and that I know I can’t answer my own question: what am I here for?

Simple: I’m going to explode if I don’t let this out.

This section constitutes part one of two. In this section, I’d like to take a look at the general trend - including specific examples - and examine a handful of canon elements that might be responsible. Part two will be a few case studies of some of the genre kings that loom above the Skybound fanfiction world and, in recent weeks, have cast longer shadows than ever.

But we’ll get there when we get there.

______

I may not have been transparent enough in my opener, so let me shoot it to you straight here. Ever since Skybound’s original airing, specifically after the premiere of the episode “My Dinner With Nadakhan,” I’ve noticed that fanfiction written about Skybound leans heavily towards examining and demonstrating Jay’s trauma. Often, this goes beyond the canon-compliant portrayal of physical and emotional abuse that Jay suffers, and takes a hard left into something with very little canon basis: Nadakhan’s explicit sexual assault of Jay, which has a frightening tendency to culminate in rape (or, if the author is bold enough, begins there).

So many of these works that I’ve seen describe the central goal of their work as expansion of the events of “My Dinner With Nadakhan” and the following episodes. Although they don’t all claim full canon compliance, many of them hint at it by keeping key events (the infamous dinner scene, the introduction of Scrap ‘n Tap, and the “Wishmasters” rescue) in approximately the same order. Dialogue is usually preserved, too. The transformative elements that keep these from being basic episode transcripts come from the expansion. On the lighter end of the spectrum, we might have a scene being described in more detail - what drink does Nadakhan pour for Jay? How many opponents does Jay face in the ring, and who sends him to the cut to black?

On the heavier end come entirely new scenes - extra fight ring rounds, extra depictions of bullying by the crew of the Misfortune’s Keep, and - of course - scenes depicting sexual assault. The titular dinner does not end with the map on the wall going up in flames as in canon; the camera pans to the bed and the mic starts picking up anguished pleading. The room is spinning and burning hot, then icy cold; now Jay’s alone, shivering, and - oh. Yikes. Time to update the rating.

It’s weird, really, how often I’ve seen this happen. Not that there are hundreds of explicit works out there, but even stories that don’t center on the assault may hint at it having happened, sometimes in a way that assumes the reader already knows about it. The following works, all picked from the Nadakhan tag on AO3, occupy separate but similar spots on that spectrum and provide some of the best examples of this phenomenon that I know of (aside from the two behemoth works I’ll get to in the second post):

Tipsyrainbow’s appropriately titled “My Dinner With Nadakhan,” from 2018, is the earliest AO3 example I could find. In hindsight, this reads like a blueprint for later instances, and in fact influenced a lot of how I wrote the summary of the trend above. It’s the dinner scene that ends with, well, pretty much exactly what the tags promise: sexual assault. Rape accusations are very narrowly held back by a dubious consent tag, but that’s being generous.

tashared7’s I Wish It All Away, which I admit to never having read in full, is twenty-six chapters long and appears early in the tag. Again, I have only reviewed a few chapters for this essay; I have never read this in full. I’m including my brief skim as an example because this work has an explicit mention of Nadakhan raping Jay within the first three sentences of chapter one. Is it very detailed? No - the writing is fairly simplistic and brusque - but it’s long, and the assault happens frequently. Of the few chapters I selected from the index, every single one included some kind of violent assault.

Grimbeak’s “Memories in shades of blue” is not explicit - in fact, it’s a work I like quite a bit that examines Jay’s post-Skybound trauma from a few of the classical angles, with a bit of Nya analysis tossed in for good measure. This one also never explicitly describes the sexual assault, but it’s in the tags and serves as the emotional crux of the final segment.

vvvortex’s “Challenge,” a oneshot set somewhere vague in the traditional “My Dinner With Nadakhan” setting, never says a thing about rape. Like Grimbeak’s work, it includes it in tags; references to the event top out at overly-intimate touching from Nadakhan and veiled references to assault-related injuries and details of the event itself.

These works, all unique, share something in common: an affinity for a laser-focused, usually inordinate focus on sexual assault as a core element of Jay’s trauma. All are rooted somewhere in canon, which begs the question: how did we get here? What made all these unrelated authors decide to start from the same basic angle?

There are three main aspects of Skybound that I think could be catalysts for this trend. Two of these, I think, are perfectly logical, but only one gets used consistently; the other is usually ignored despite being the strongest link to canon. The third has come under fire recently for good reason, as it’s a completely batshit place to start from, but I’ve unfortunately seen enough circumstantial evidence to know that it’s got a dangerously strong correlation.

The first catalyst, and the only one that everyone seems to agree on, is Nadakhan’s tendency to weaponize intimacy. I won’t rehash it too hard, but anyone who’s ever watched Skybound knows that the guy is handsy. He doesn’t respect personal space; he whispers things that are a little too personal, he touches shoulders and faces unprompted, and above all else he does not respect boundaries. He operates on reading his enemies like an open book and then using their flaws against them. I fully agree with many fan readings of him - really, the guy seems like he was written for something with a much higher and less child-friendly rating. Indeed, in his interview with Brent Miller several years ago, voice actor Scott McNeil outright called the voice he created for Nadakhan “sexy” (which Miller agreed with) and then compared it to something you’d pay “$3.99 a minute” for on a sex hotline. I genuinely wish I were making this up. Unfortunately, I am not, and no matter how long I turn my face to the sky and shout, I can’t get that wish granted.

Enough about how McNeil behaves during interviews, though (he's otherwise quite lovely, I promise!). Nadakhan’s tendency to be an absolute creep is well-documented, both indirectly in fanfiction and directly in some analytical works (a recent one, from @tornoleander, is remarkably detailed for being so brief). In other terms: it’s no secret.

Let’s move on.

The second plausible catalyst, which I’ve found is often taken as permission to treat other characters in the same manner, is the infamous scene that closes out “The Last Resort.” If you don’t remember what this is, I envy you, but it’s the one where Nadakhan leans in to kiss a newly-captured Nya. We hear him puckering up, and then - mercifully - we cut to credits, but it’s pretty obvious what’s about to happen. It’s the season’s only direct depiction of sexual assault (given that we don’t actually see it, you’d also be well within your rights to call it a heavy implication, but bear with me here; either way, it’s the closest we get) and, I agree, confirms Nadakhan’s general depravity and willingness to do something like that to a minor (we're not addressing how Delara influences this, because that raises issues I don’t have the patience for right now). Therefore: it’s a possible catalyst.

The key word there is possible. Here is what keeps that word there: nothing of this caliber ever happens to Jay in canon. Nadakhan’s invasive, sure, but remember that he’s like that with everyone. It only stands out with Jay’s experience because, unlike the scenes of him swirling around Misako or cornering Kai on an empty beach, it fills a whole episode. However, none of these cross a line like the end of “The Last Resort” does. I think the major issue, and what makes this a jumping-off point for so much fanwork, is that it’s all a matter of time - Nadakhan’s assault of Nya is only shown for a few seconds before the most graphic section is stamped out by a smash cut to credits, while his treatment of Jay is the focus of an entire episode. It’s much easier to find source material that can be opened up to accommodate sexual assault when there’s over twenty minutes of it to sift through - and, if I had to guess, far more comfortable. You can reasonably hide behind a wall of what-ifs here: what if it happens here? Wouldn’t that be wild? Or maybe, just maybe, it happens there - but who’s to say, really? We’re only guessing!

Nya’s experience, however, leaves little to the imagination when it comes to the major details. There is a time, a place, a circumstance; there are two pirates holding her still as Nadakhan drifts closer and she panics, and quite frankly, nobody goes in for a period-drama style gentlemanly hand kiss like that. We know what's about to happen; we can feel it in the air, seeping in through crumbling lighthouse walls. To add extraneous detail to that forces an author to admit that they thought about that scene beyond the canon elements, and no matter how justifiable their reason might be, that’s a weird thing to confess.

That distortion becomes apparent with how fanfiction applies sexual assault to Skybound. The entire reason I’m writing this is, of course, the popularity of work that features Jay being sexually assaulted as a core part of his trauma; I’m not going back in to grab more examples. Beyond some core shared tropes and traits, they’re often a little bit unique. If that distinctiveness isn’t in the time and place, then it’s in the minutiae: the light levels, what the bed (or lack thereof) feels like, and all sorts of other things. The same core picture, painted by different hands on different materials.

Nya’s canon assault at Nadakhan’s hands, however? I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen that depicted. One of those is mine. All of them revolve around the canon details, chief among them the duration: they’re short. My writing treats it as a brief, uncomfortable flashback - however, that’s a Nya-centric one. The other depictions that I recall seeing all happen somewhere in a traditionally Jay-centric fic and, with the exception of coming up with some kind of aftermath, almost read as afterthoughts despite the scene being the only concrete evidence of Nadakhan being any kind of sexual predator.

Proceeding chronologically through Skybound, as these works almost always do, it’s as though Nya’s assault is a roadblock to get past - but! If it’s not included, there goes the underlying promise that it’s supposed to be an enhanced edition of the season. Never mind that, by the time you reach this point in a gritty Skybound rewrite, you’ve already sailed way past canon compliance. We come to the issue of time and place again: arrive, write the scene as quickly as possible (if at all), and then move on to the next set of Jay flashbacks while Nya waits in the wings to die, because Jay’s situation leaves plenty of space to invent new what-ifs and that’s what the real goal is.

Speaking of what-ifs, we come to the third catalyst, which is its own motif at this point. Also, a terrifying example of Olympic-level mental gymnastics. I didn’t say possible here because, despite it making no sense to me, I know this one did something nasty to the fanfiction world. I knew it was coming. You knew it was coming. Tommy Andreasen just called me to ask me why he could hear the “Wishmasters” soundtrack coming from my house clear across the planet, and then he hung up to tweet more photos of funky forest stuff before I could confirm why.

Here it is, catalyst three:

Courtesy of the Ninjago Wiki.

I don’t think there’s an official name for this one yet, somehow, although I tend to call it “the bedroom floor thing” when I do bother to address it. Which… that isn’t often, because I don’t deal in Jay angst, and whenever I do see this as a motif - or a starting point - for a Jay-centered sexual assault scene, I bluescreen. I know that this scene did something to influence the trend. Maybe I’m blinded by liking canon compliance too much - although, no, wait, that’s not the issue at hand, because people treat this as canon compliance. In the fanfiction world and beyond, I’ve noticed an underlying theme: the idea that this scene, this image, is some kind of canon confirmation that Nadakhan sexually assaulted Jay, and therefore it is acceptable territory for a gritty rewrite.

I don’t know where it came from. I want to, but I don’t want to, because I feel like I saw the source somewhere years ago and blacked it out. It’s a weird scene, to be sure, but I’m having trouble making the jump from “oh he’s in pain and on the ground in a dark corner after being either beaten or forced to work” to “Nadakhan definitely sexually assaulted Jay multiple times on this ship and this is the aftermath of one of those instances”.

I have never been able to find someone to explain why this scene is synonymous with sexual assault, so here is my best guess at the average thought process:

Jay was subjected to physical and emotional torture while on board the Misfortune’s Keep. (Verifiable fact.)

This torment centered on cruel, unusual approaches designed to test Jay’s will and break him down physically and emotionally. (Verifiable fact.)

Nadakhan is a creep. (Super verifiable fact.)

This scene occurs in Nadakhan’s bedroom/private quarters and, based on Jay’s motion and general affect, occurs sometime soon after some form of abuse. (First part of that: verifiable. Second: decent implication.)

Bedrooms are where sexual activities often occur. (Uh, okay…)

Sexual activity is an intimate thing that can easily become a form of torture. (Of course. Verifiable fact.)

It follows that, if Jay is in an intimate bedroom environment owned by someone currently torturing him, and he is acting like he has just been tortured, then surely that torture is of a sexual nature. (Uh…)

Therefore, sexual assault of Jay during his time on the Keep has canon basis and is worth elaborating on. (Dude?!)

I don’t know either. If you do, please - help me out. Why this? Are we forgetting the multiple canon scenes of him being on the floor for other reasons, like when he was cleaning, nursing his own wounds, or being repeatedly beaten to the ground during Scrap n’ Tap? What’s with this one?

Actually, a better question: why are we all so desperate to explain it?

Ah. That’s it, isn’t it? We want to explain it away. I just tried; many others have been writing it out for years. But why so graphic? Why the jump to sexual assault in these cases?

What about this traces a cold steel hook against our collective throats and chills the next breath that goes down? The intimacy? Maybe - the same thing happens with the arguably more intimate candlelit dinner scene - but at least for that one, Nadakhan’s too there to argue it’s the aftermath of something. I can see the dinner scene being a prelude to something. He’s not here for this. There is no evidence to suggest he’s been there recently, either - he pops in for a drink, gets sidetracked, and only then does he realize Jay’s missing, as he’s been out dealing with renaming new recruits and muttering ominously to himself about wedding venues all day (if the leadup to this part is any indication).

Once again: why?

______

We return to the hook.

If exposed to enough blood - or any liquid, really, but blood seems thematically appropriate - iron rusts. Rust, in turn, weakens metal, and we come to the present problem: our hook begins to break down.

Nowhere in these works have I encountered a scene of Nadakhan cleaning his prosthetic. If there is a reaction to the mess he’s created, it’s one of admiration - no, that’s not quite strong enough. Revelry. There’s the word I want. It’s the same peculiar feeling that some authors out there have to be feeling to some degree when they think about all of this, right? All of the catalysts I’ve examined, the overlapping trends in sexual assault Skybound fanfiction - something’s eaten away at the genre like venom. Unless I risk reaching in and flaking the rust off to get to the untouched works hiding in the core of the genre, it’s all I can see: a collective fascination with jumping to a bizarre conclusion and running with it.

Whoever did this first: congratulations. I don’t know how it took hold, and I don’t think I’m qualified to examine that - sexual assault is a difficult subject! That makes it all the harder to examine even from a few degrees of separation away, but it also makes me wonder: why? Why that kind of trauma? Surely there are more effective, unique ways to highlight Nadakhan’s signature invasiveness than that.

But here it is, seeping in, breaking down the metal of the genre.

I may never be able to pin down who did it first; that’s fine. They’ve left scars behind, obvious ones, and I’m sure we won’t forget their legacy any time soon.

I still want to try.

In part two of this essay, I’ll be examining the two most popular current candidates for Chief Skybound Sexual Assault fic. Both - to their credit - display pretty unique rust patterns when compared to the genre stereotypes, but rust is rust is rust: symptomatic of something deeper that I may never be able to explain fully. However, with enough time and scrutiny, I wonder if that rust won’t just crumble entirely.

Read Part Two: The Canary In The Bag here.

#ninjago #very interesting writeup #second part is linked at the end #jay #ns6

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