#this probably makes NO sense to anyone sorrrry ill shut up now Bye.

[clambuoyance]

Sorry if uve answered this before but like. What do u think kon and clarks relationship? I kinda like them being on good terms but in the nebulous ur ny uncle/brother/cousin/close family memeber deal instead of clark being a parent because... waves hands at luthor and the uh. Kinda constant issues of how kon was created and also because I think kon deserves to choose what people to mean to him after everything he's been thru but what do u think

ive had a couple asks about this and i dont remember if ive answered it before or not but i guess ill separate my thoughts into Fanon/my preferred timeline and then canon. but i think im in the same general camp where i think that theyre relationship is very nebulous, but don't mind if Parent is one of those relationships thrown into the mix. saying theyre brothers doesnt feel 100% right, but saying theyre father-son also doesnt feel totally right? i literally don't know how to explain how i feel about it but if you read this maybe it will be more clear

uh this will be long

1)Canon (pre retcon and post retcon)

Sooooo firstly with canon, i chalk a lot of the choices up to the narrative constraints and dc editorial things? because one, they wanted superboy to be a solo hero and not a sidekick, and two, his original story is that he is not a superman clone, but just a clone from a shitbag scientist named Paul Westfield that was altered to look and mimic clark, which is also pretty weird and understandably off-putting for clark still.

then when clark finally "returns from the dead" he's still pretty concerned about the kid? like he helps kon figure out what to do with cadmus and all, and then kon gives clark's old apartment back to him and says he's gonna find a new place and fly "second star to the right and straight on till morning" T-T

and you know from then on he's just a guy that occasionally pops up and gives kon advice.

and then we get to the whole "brother thing" because when kon went into hypertime and met teen clark, teen clark assumed his adult self had shared his secret identity and life with kon, which makes kon feel insecure about not being trustworthy. teen clark explains that he probably has a reason and says they could be like brothers. and when kon comes back and confronts kal-el, kal tells him he's family.

they do act familial, but the brother thing was proposed by clark first so it's not as clear on kon's side. personally, despite his rebellious attitude and insistence on being his own man, he's still a kid, and with how much kon latches onto father figures, laments about not having a real father or mother and even wishes he had one, gets distraught at the thought of losing his father figures like guardian or dubbilex, i don't really blame some readers for hoping clark would step in more as either a mentor or something more?

but again, that would require some big narrative commitments and mightve made it hard for them to be solo heroes with separate lives, and supergirls a solo hero too with a similar age range but she's already been established as a cousin.

now after the retcon, its been changed so that kon is half lex luthor half clark, and though there's still a mixed bag of opinions on it, at least kon's attitude towards paul and not wanting to end up like a shitbag and have to be told by clark he's his own person still applies i guess T-T and the circumstances are more iffy and kon does keep it a secret for a while. it also complicates things by painting clark to be some absentee dad, which frankly is out of character for him i think. so idk kon keeping both his donors a secret could be interesting ? i have to think about it and how to resolve that narrative issue T-T. but also, i dont think the retcon is necessarily bad, just had a bunch of missed unique opportunities they could've used to make it stand out in a medium where this type of plotline already saturates its stories T-T (you could buy a sandwich if you had a nickel for every hero with half villain half hero genes)

so yeah basically im pretty sure readers at the time were hoping for a more father-son relationship while some were fine with just being brothers, and dc cant decide so i have decided that i will apply homestuck rules in which they are genetic father and son and may call each other brothers but in a way where kon looks up to clark so much he's basically a father to him. or like in ninjago where kai and lloyd clearly have a brotherly relationship but lloyd claims "kai was a father to me when i needed one."

because relationships aren't so cookie cutter you know? especially when it comes to family.

ANYWAYSSSSSSS

2) Fanon/My canon timeline

In my mind's eye, their relationship takes a longgg time to develop, and it has to overcome misunderstandings, but they are always amicable to each other. (Basically, not whatever the yj show did?) Clark doesn't automatically set himself to adopt or whatever, but he promises to look after him and has a more active role in helping kon find a place to stay, on kon's own insistence on being his own independent person. He heavily distrusts Cadmus though but dubbilex and guardian seem trustworthy enough. There is a part where he asks kon to keep an eye on cadmus' shady operations, and in my fanon I'd rather him just say that kon should go to him if anything bad every happens more out of concern for kon's safety than anything else? If that made sense.

Also, Clark is young and still rattling with the fact there's a mini-him running around the place that was meant to replace him so he's allowed to feel weird about it and not have all the answers. He does know that the right thing to do is make sure the kid's safe, but the kon's got a chip on his shoulder and doesn't make it easy. Kon is no one's sidekick--he is going to be superman one day, because it's what he's meant to do. He doesn't always know what's best for him, and always gets himself into trouble, and maybe he knows that, but I'd write it so that he slowly has to learn that it's okay to be a kid and to fuck up sometimes and listen to someone who knows better. Also, he talks big shit about being superman but also places expectations on himself because Clark's shadow is just so big that it makes it hard to connect with clark maybe? Like that's the guy you were made to be one day. And you know for a fact he didnt mess up as much as you did.

And when kal gives him the name kon-el and proclaims that he is family, kon is so happy he cries so you're left wondering why it took so long for them to get to that point. so i think in my timeline it'd happen a bit sooner? or like i would not make it take so long lol.

then you meet teen clark, and i think that's when things start to change. Of course this is the homestuck in me talking, but I think i'd have liked to see kon spend more time with teen clark, where some of that walls between them could have been broken down at now that kon's able to see what clark was like as a kid and bring him down to earth more rather than view him as this big lofty figure in his life. that's also partly what the yj sins of youth arc does too i guess. mmm gotta love the coming-of-age-ness of it all.

teen clark says that having kon around is kind of like having a brother, and kon nods but wonders if adult clark will think the same. after returning to his reality, kon goes to kal-el who reassures him he's family and trusts him and is sorry he doesn't make that more clear. he'd ask what kon wants but kon himself is still unsure. and after that convo, clark makes it a point to check up on him more and grows more concerned. he's gotten to know the kid a lot more!

and okay i could go on and on but basically, he voices his concerns about kon's living situations and surrounding peers a lot more and is careful not to command kon like a scolding parent, but nudge him with advice and let it be kon's decision on what to do. basically this is the stage where clark is acting more like a guardian figure i guess and after kon is finally convinced to go live in smallville with the kents, clark gets a lot more unbearable and acts like an annoying family member to kon and smothers him with sagely advice lol. and kon appreciates the gesture but he's having a hard time adjusting to it all, at having to live a normal life, and no matter what clark does there's still this shadow and expectation that falls on him. and not knowing what to do kon gives in, and tries to mimic clark cuz his previous efforts to be his own person all always landed him in hot shit.

(and if we are keeping the retcon, then finding out you arent who you thought you were would just add more to ur identity crisis T-T and if ur like me who likes to think of kon as queer then aaaah this new life would do a number on you and you might try to act soooo normal and scramble for a sense of control and understanding of your own life. and insisting on keeping it a secret bc ur afraid it'll change what people think of you? ough ik it wasnt meant to be read like that but my brain just went aaaaah. the queer experience. and with the whole luthor mind control thing? I hate 70% of it but i like thinking about it from an angle where kon realllly has to fight for an ounce of control over any aspect of his life idk idk T-T even without the retcon, i think you could still find a way to do something with this notion of identity and control)

anyways, i think time in smallville would slowly allow clark and kon to bond even more and really see each other for who they are as people and for kon to really find out who he is and who he wants to be, not as a sidekick to clark or as superman but as himself (and he'd slowly come back to a more punk and/or flamboyant fashion sense T-T). he's friends with the coolest teen heroes ever who are his family, and he's ma kent's boy. and he's clark's family. he tells his school friends that clark's his cousin and maybe thats what the documents say, and they may agree to call each other brothers, but bottomline is clark will be a father to kon whenever he needs one and will always be there to help kon and be a home to him.

then when clark is older and has jon, i guess maybe kon would still stick around and help out and definitely sees himself as jon's brother. like regardless of what clark and kon decide to call themselves kon is jon's brother like i really want them to be silly brothers. also cuz jon deserves one. there's so many interesting things dc could do with jon and kon aaaag so sad. it's also important to me that clark is a good parent and even if he wasnt perfect, he cared about kon and explicitly shows theyre family? like even in canon sometimes it didnt feel like it T-T

maybe it's just me, but i guess i project a lot of my own experiences and my oc rolin's experience onto him a lot. because rolin lives with his aunt who is basically a mother to him, and he has an older cousin who is basically a brother to him, and then this little girl that barges into his life basically becomes his sister and he can act like an overbearing parent to her even though they're not related by blood. he's got a weird relationship with his own dad, so he sees a father in a lot of older ppl. you can never have too many parental figures!!! so i guess my mind's used to thinking of family members doing double duty T-T ? i just personally really think dynamics shouldn't easily be pinned down as just one thing and think ppl are too stuck on traditional (or perhaps a nuclear or western) family standards. ugh when i write my oc story you will all see.

sorry that was really long and rambly and didn't make sense in some parts--i probably should have done this in google docs and made this fancy. also! who knows i might totally change my mind on a thing anyways. canon is my playdough i mold to whatever i think suits a more interesting narrative or to my personal bias.