throne of lies

The Karamel Hiatus Project

Week 4: Season 2 Headcanons: Why Mon-El likes pizza with pineapple

Okay, headcanon is a new concept for me, but Tinnefoil’s post inspired a sudden flash of insight into the “one note” Mon-El had for Kara about their night o’ love (which, heh!): “I would like to wake up next to you.”

First, I am 100 percent sure this had nothing to do with a feeling of entitlement on his part. Like, zero percent chance. Nada chance. Zilch chanciness.

(Plus, Mon-El was obviously always a cuddler, because he was all snuggled up to that girl in his bed the morning Krypton exploded and rained down its fiery destruction on Daxam.)

But we don’t talk about that! 

My headcanon is that Mon-El was always a sweet, caring, likable guy with a big heart. And from the time he was a little boy he craved attention and yearned for love in his life, but got very little of either from his parents.

As he grew older, he turned to drugs and alcohol to dull any kind of real emotions, like loneliness and frustration. He partied and fooled around because it distracted him, made him forget, just for a little while, that even though he was Mon-El, Prince of Daxam, he was virtually powerless to do anything real for his people. Not with his parents in power.

But at the end of the day, underneath it all, he was always that adorable outer space stray puppy who just wanted a family. People to admire. Someone to love.

So when Mon-El told Kara all he wanted was to wake up next to her, I don’t think he said that because he felt somehow entitled to her presence when he woke up. I think he wanted to wake up next to Kara because he was finally - finally! - able to share his big, goofy, beautiful heart with someone who was willing and happy to reciprocate his love.

That romantic bastard!

I think more than anything Mon-El wanted to make Kara happy, and to do that, he had to be the kind of man she deserved. A hero. So he wanted to always be close to her because she inspired him to be the best version of himself.

You Want Proof? You Can’t Handle the Proof!

The best indicator I have that my headcanon has some credibility is that Mon-El’s mother actually confirmed my suspicions.

Yep. Good old evil Rhea let slip a few stories about Mon-El’s childhood that gave us the absolute best insight into the type of person Mon-El had always been, even underneath his infamous “frat boy of the universe” persona.

Apparently, Mon-El’s ability to love unconditionally, and his need for physical shows of affection, were not a new thing.

In Distant Sun (2x17):

Rhea: When you were a child, you used to grab my leg with both arms every time I tried to leave the room. I would have to peel you off of me like some gangly little magnet. And it broke my heart.

And in City of Lost Children (2x20):

Rhea: When you were a boy and I would put you to sleep at night, you used to say to me that you would always love me.

Okay, yes, Rhea was definitely manipulating Mon-El in each of these scenes, but the manipulation wouldn’t be effective if what she was saying wasn’t actually true.

That’s right, y’all! Mon-El has a heart full of love and he doesn’t care who knows it!

So Mon-El’s romantic nature, as evidenced by the deathbed kiss, the whole “It was okay that I was going to die because I’d gotten to kiss you” confession, his request to be able to wake up next to her, and the way he was always touching Kara (once they started dating), really should not have come as a surprise to pretty much anyone.

Other Observations About The Type of Man Mon-El Is at His Core

On Daxam

I think as Mon-El grew up he was a known jokester, and the life of every party. I think he was popular with the people of Daxam, especially the ladies. I’d guess one could say he was probably even beloved by his people. Like, I think the palace guard who saved Mon-El genuinely cared about him. Think about it. Daxam was falling apart. Why would his guard bother ensuring the safety and survival of a spoiled, arrogant prince, when he could have saved himself instead? But he gave up his life to save Mon-El’s. “Go! Now!” he yelled to his Prince as he fought off people trying to get to the pod. He didn’t have to do any of that. But he did.

That kind of loyalty is earned, never forced.

On Earth

I think from the moment Mon-El and Kara shook hands and started fresh, he has been portrayed as a flawed, but genuinely nice and loving person. No one ever even suspected he was the Prince of Daxam, because he certainly didn’t act like he deserved special treatment or like he felt he was better than anyone else. He was just always around - friendly, easygoing Mon-El - in the thick of things, asking questions, jumping into conversations, angling to be included in parties and other outings…

I mean, there’s a reason Kara referred to him as an outer space stray puppy!

I think Mon-El was initially overwhelmed as he tried to navigate the wave of emotions he’d never had to deal with before, so he fell back into some of his old habits and turned to alcohol to dull some of the noise. But Kara believing in him, seeing the good in him, and Alex calling him out as a coward and telling him to stand up, were all the push he needed to start down a different path. A path that included club soda on the rocks, sparring sessions, rocky relationships, and love.

That said, I don’t think that it’s necessarily required for a guard to have liked Mon-El personally to die for him. I mean, having guards like that is still pretty frequent in various dictatorships or other oppressive regimes. (note how Rhea says he will be rewarded in the afterlife, add to that the comments about Daxamites being given drugs, I have no problem picturing how that in combination could easily lead to fatalistic loyalty even without personal attachment)

Or course, part of this is mostly my rival headcanon that I tend to headcanon Mon-El as having had troubles forming genuine relationships with people on Daxam (maybe because of his status as a prince) because: 

1.) to me that explains why he latched on to Kara and to earth so quickly 2.) makes it more understandable that he chose staying with Kara/staying on earth over returning to Daxam 3.) makes his “spoiled and useless” more relateable (if you have people who love you or are your friends genuinely, it just seems to me that your life wouldn’t be as useless) 

Mon-El very resoundingly chose earth over Daxam, we never really see any personal friendly interactions between him and any of the Daxamites (for example no personal words of goodbye from the guard), it would be kind of assy if he turns on all of Daxam just to punish them for the system when he personally experienced genuine love/support from them. To me Mon-El’s fatalism in how it is impossible to change things to me makes more sense if he “ran into emotional walls” repeatedly and not just with Rhea. 

So I tend to headcanon him as more (emotionally) isolated, like his parents not giving him much affection and maybe no real affection with other people forming because he was mostly surrounded by servants/employees who maybe were exchanged frequently so no long term bonds could form [think of the borderline faceless servants/soldiers/whatever who knelt/bowed in front him and his parents and who stand in the background while they eat, imagine growing up with those type of guards/servants constantly around you]. I do picture him as being liked by the populace but more in a generic, distant “ah, our prince is such a stud/such a good Daxamite” kind of way. 

Jonerys Week 2018 ~ Day 2&3:  Smut and Fluff

I’m really bad at headcanon stuff :) 

Okay, here is my attempt. I’ve always been fascinated by the first “Wake Up With Me”. It’s just so surprisingly sappy, the first appearance to me as real romantic sappy Mon-El. 

Yes there were moments and big confessions and big words before (like both the comet and the kryptonite speeches). I’d even count him grabbing Kara for a dance. Still, a lot of these moments felt surprising or like they had to be forced out of him. 

But here, he is so happy and excited and the request comes from him. 

So I was wondering about it. Is it just entitlement? (after all this is before his big “learn his lesson” episode) Did he expect her to be there? It just doesn’t necessarily seem to fit what the show had been implying about Mon-El’s more “come and go” hookups. 

Still, we can’t really rule out that maybe on Daxam that was more normal for people to stay the night? 

Of course my favorite *shippy* explanation is that not only has “waking up” be a theme in Karamel for longer (Kara vowing that she’ll there when he wakes up from his coma, and of course we know that his sentiment is later repeated by Kara and we know she’s not requesting it because she’s used to it), but that it’s a reference to episode 8 when he first kissed her. That that is the feeling he is thinking of how he woke up there and she was there and how much he loved that (enough to kiss her) and how he wants that in more peaceful circumstances. 

Plus a variety of Mon-El’s comment about his past (from spoiled and useless person to him saying that he used to be a misogynist) don’t really make a ton of sense to me if pre-earth/pre-Kara Mon-El was just a misunderstood little choir boy. (plus all the comments from Chris and from the writers from this area all seemed to take his partying as face value, since again the tenor was a guy who was “starting out as far away from being a hero as possible”)

It’s kind of like you see a lot of fanon Mon-El being shy and bookish on Daxam before coming to earth when we know he didn’t read books before coming to earth since he is explicitly surprised by how useful books are. 

I get why people are drawn to these characterizations [and not just because people want Mon-El to be innocent, but also because it’s kind of weird that if he was promicuous in the past that he jumped into longterm relationship mode with Kara so quickly and of course now has some sort of longterm relationship with Imra; or the scene where he initially worries about his performance when waking up in Kara’s bed] , but to me they are not really backed by canon very well/I’d argue they are even somewhat contradicted in places. I would argue that his story relies on the concept of heavy transformation rather than “Kara was wrong about everything, Mon-El actually was just a innocent little flowerchild with an evil mother in his time pre-canon” because that to me is how Mon-El seems to perceive his experience with Kara.

my dude, all live action clois is A+

In all seriousness I strongly believe that the 90′s tv series, Lois and Clark The New Adventures of Superman is one of the best portrayals of Clois ever. 

For one reason because the show focuses mainly on their relationship so you get a better feel of the depth of their relationship. Not to spoil anything if you do plan to watch it, you get to see each individual layer of their said relationship from the start where they are literally fighting over headlines, to being friends and eventually what starts to be their relationship.

How did Mon-El find out about Romeo and Juliet?