Season 3 images with Mona
Takes place the day after Parents' Day. Mona, after thinking about whether she should ask or not and genuinely curious, eventually does ask Preston after he notices her fiddling with her hands:
''Why, uh... didn't your parents come yesterday? Were... they busy?''
He freezes and doesn't know how to respond to that. He tries to play it off without mentioning his parents directly but Mona, who usually can't read people that well, notices something's clearly bothering him. She asks if he's okay and he waves it off, saying he's great. She feels like she shouldn't push and so continues helping him clean up the props from yesterday. They work in silence until it bothers him so much that he just sits down nearby and then admits his parents died when he was 2 years old in a car accident after they went on a quick business meeting, leaving Preston at home with his Gram-Gram and she's been raising him since, with help from a few family friends.
She says ''I didn't know... Sorry...'' and he waves a hand, saying it's not her fault and says he actually misses them a lot while tearing up and wishes they could still... be here. Mona, thinking of what to say to try and comfort him, says ''Well, if they would be here... I think they'd be proud of you.'' And that just makes him even more emotional. She sits down next to him and he lets the tears come. A few minutes later, he gets up, blows his nose, declares that the show still has to go on and then thanks Mona for just... being here. And she just says ''No problem.'' with a small smile.
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(In NIGHT OF THE LIVING ILL, Mona goes with the others to look for the medicine and has no problem going off on her own to look for it too. She finds a room that has nothing that looks like medicine but looks around anyway, until she spots a spider web with no spider, gets paranoid and immediately leaves the room, hears Preston scream, then gets infected by Nikki as well when she went to look and gets drowsy but ''plays along'' anyway)
(In A Camp Camp Christmas, or Whatever, Mona is confused as frick to see the snow but doesn't stay questioning it for too long, thinking ''well apparently it's possible then''.
Later on, she puts on something warmer and goes outside, literally throwing herself into a bunch of snow, kicks the snow up and lies down, saying (after checking no one's around) she's always wanted to do that. And tells Preston he's going to get sick after she comes across him but he protests he's not and invites her to the play. She goes to watch it later and at one point Nurf throws a snowball right at her face, after she was invited to the play.
When David's about to go buy others presents, he doesn't know what Mona would like and asks either Gwen or Preston what she likes and finds out she likes cat-related things and gets her smth cat related (whether it be a book on cats, or cat themed notebooks)
Mona doesn't laugh when the whole thing with Ered happens, not understanding why everybody else is laughing as it looked painful. Later on everybody dresses up, while Mona just doesn't care in the slightest about being ''the coolest camper'', and on top of that being too socially anxious anyway to compete in anything even if she would care.
When Ered and Nerris walk past everybody, Ered tells Mona ''You didn't dress up, huh? Good for you, dude.'' and Mona doesn't say anything, just watching her go as the social anxiety kicks in a bit delayed.
She feels intimidated by Vera and makes sure to keep a big distance away from her.
Then gets to eat chocolate ice cream later, what she's over the moon about.
(In Nikki's Last Day On Earth, she's not really sure whether to believe Nikki's dying or not and grows more concerned by the minute as she's about to be given a Viking's funeral and relieved as heck when it's stopped.
She hears Gwen telling Nikki that she's growing up and just has a period and is concerned at the fact that this means she's going to have to go through it too (she wasn't told what periods are yet cause her mom knew she'd panic) When they watch a horror movie, she forgets about the fear briefly. Worries about it for the next few following days until she sort of comes to terms with it when she realizes she only has to worry if she feels pain suddenly. But she won't end up getting one until a month before season 5 takes place, in May, still 11 but approaching 12 fast)
During the Lake Lilac Summer Social, she just observes everything while hanging out with Preston and unexpectedly ends up shipping Neil and Erin.
Since there was a cut scene from this episode about Preston seeing everybody and wondering if he's supposed to have someone he likes too, I decided to add this into my AU: Mona notices he looks confused and maybe sorta nervous, asks if he's good and at first he deflects but after thinking about it for 20 seconds or so, just gives up and explains that he's never really had a crush, isn't even sure if he wants a relationship and just feels... confused watching everybody here liking someone. Mona tries to cheer him up and says that she thinks there's nothing wrong with that. ''If you don't like anybody like that, you just don't. And if anybody thinks that's weird, who cares what they think? It isn't their life.'' and adds that maybe he WILL get a crush in the future, who knows? (In the subplot Petrol ended up giving him advice (without even speaking, and giving him a note) that cheered him up, and since Mona's there, he probably wouldn't intervene that time but maybe give a thumbs up and a nod in response to her words when Preston spots him nearby.
Then the ending happens and Mona, who's already been tense for the whole day because of the big event, gets a migraine after the bright lights. She brings up she's going to get some air before Preston himself notices and they hang out near the mess hall, her turning down the idea of taking a painkiller and says she'll just wait for sleep.
In ''Cameron Campbell the Camp Campbell Camper'', Mona knows the ''new kid'' is Campbell right off the bat and when she brings it up to Preston later after he makes a comment about him, he's confused until it starts making sense to him too and he goes ''......OH.''
In ''The Candy Kingpin'', she shows up with the others and later on, gathering all of her courage, goes up to Max alone to sacrifice one of the spare pencils she has (cause she LOVES candy) and then gets given candy, heart racing cause of the social anxiety when she leaves.
Max: ''Alright, what do YOU have, Mona?''
Mona: *takes the pencil out without saying a word and holds it towards him awkwardly*
Max: ''....It'll do. Give it here.'' (accepts it and then gives her the candy) ''Aaand there.''
Mona: *thinks she should say Thank You but attemps to nod instead, anxiety taking over, and immediately turns and leaves, glad that it's over*
She ends up actually enjoying looking around in the city and the park reminds her of the park back at home where she's gone. When she hears the camp's sold, she flinches hard instead of shouting and when she realizes it means she has to leave it, she feels a crushing weight in her chest.
In Camp Corp, she keeps zoning out when the others are arguing about what's going to happen now, sad over having to leave cause the camp's JUST started to feel like a second home and she JUST made her first ever friend! On the bus, she and Preston finally address the fact that they're going to have to split up now. Preston genuinely tears up and Mona's close to doing the same, saying how it's unfair that she finally managed to make a friend and now she probably won't get to see him again. Before he leaves the bus for his camp, he hugs her and she's too caught off guard to attempt to hug back. He quickly says bye with a forced smile and leaves the bus and she (quietly) says ''Bye...'' back, tearing up only then and trying to hide her crying from whoever's left on the bus.
(drawing)
At Book Camp, she keeps her distance from other campers, responds to the counselor only by head nodding or shaking, ignores attempts to befriend her, isolates herself to read alone to distract herself and loses her appetite due to the sudden change (she also lost her appetite when she was 9 and her older sister, who she's very close to, went travelling. Her mom got her to eat eventually but she had to force herself to eat until the appetite came back days later) When Max shows up, she finally talks to him properly, social anxiety replaced by relief she wasn't expecting, at seeing a familiar face, asking what he's doing here. He explains the plan and she's instantly on board. When she meets up with Preston again, he just smiles and pats the seat next to him and she genuinely smiles and goes to sit there, them catching up. Later Mona invites Dolph to sit with them, feeling high on dopamine and when he sees her playing on her IPad, he asks if he can try and she lets him, giving him instructions like she doesn't have social anxiety at all and sees that speaking to the others doesn't have to be hard either and maybe she should try talking to everyone else too. But NOT starting conversations herself. (This is probably the same length of time it took for kid me to feel comfortable enough to speak to other kids when spoken to. I had a lot of "I should try more" moments)
Back at camp when the others are playing with water guns, after Mona and Preston are given one, he just stares at his and Mona uses that to splash him with it. He freezes, before saying something dramatic that genuinely gets Mona thinking maybe she went too far and maybe he's not into water-gun-games and THEN he splashes her back. Then she takes off running, genuinely laughing and excited and he chases after her. Nikki (who tried to befriend her many times after they both arrived to camp, until Neil got her to stop as he saw she was clearly uncomfortable) splashes her once too and Mona catches her off guard by unexpectedly splashing her back and even goes chasing after her. David remarks at one point that he hasn't seen Mona THAT lively and happy before. (And that's where her social anxiety improves greatly and she actually starts talking to other campers too)
In ''Arrival of the Torso Takers'', Mona notices that ''David'' is acting kinda... off too. When she brings it up to Preston, he tells her not to worry and says ''It's David. He's always acting weird.'' Mona drops it but isn't convinced. When it's her turn for the counselling, she keeps her answers positive while creeped out the whole time, until the 15 minutes are up.
She is NOT too surprised at the later reveal but IS worried that he came back.
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I'm digging the friend slash sibling type relationship I made between Preston and Mona. I love the idea of every camper in the camp either being indifferent to him or disliking him, except one person who genuinely has no problem with his dramatics and grows to genuinely enjoy his company, and it being someone who's quiet and shy too, the complete opposite of him, causing everybody else to be confused at this type of friendship as they thought he'd scare her off (and at first he kinda did during the Romeo and Juliet play when she heard him shouting and felt kinda intimidated, well at least until he caught her crying during the Sparrow episode after it stopped raining and offered to be her friend when she explained why she was, and began to see him differently. She's also the type to be easily agreeable with things so that helps too.
He needs someone who'd appreciate his interests and I think there's plenty of room for character development for both, through the friendship.
