Children of the Moon
is a Moon Knight (2022) fanfic written on Archive of Our Own by anonmkfan.
Marc Spector has always been meant to become Moon Knight. Really, how does it change things for him to be picked up by a grumpy skeletal bird calling itself a god at fourteen years old?
Quite a lot, actually.
Contains the following tropes
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Justified even before Khonshu having a Jerkass Realization by his new Avatar's young age, since part of the god's duties was to be a protector of children — obviously he will do an effort to be softer and gentler towards Marc and his alters.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- Since Khonshu has to step up as a Parental Substitute, Marc, Jake and Steven have a much less antagonistic and wary relationship with him.
- The interactions between alters are lacking the tension coming with years of hiding from each other, and the kids very much consider each other siblings.
- Ascended Extra: Jake in the series only appears at the very end of the last episode. Here, he's very much pushed at the forefront.
- Big Brother Instinct: Both Jake and Marc towards Steven. Marc veers a tad in smothering territory, though, as he desperately wishes to keep Steven unaware of being an alter and a victim of parental abuse.
- Electroconvulsive Therapy Is Torture: Part of why Marc hated so much the Putnam psychiatric hospital was the doctors and nurses giving him electroconvulsive therapy, reducing the boy to a drooling Empty Shell after each session.
- Friend to All Children:
- A former title of Khonshu was "Protector of children", and he fondly remembers teaching kids about legends and history through his priests in Ancient Egypt.
- Hathor is a goddess of motherhood, it comes with the territory. Her Avatar Yatzli works to rescue children from bad circumstances, and is quite worried when she learns of Khonshu's new Avatar being so young and in need of help.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Bertrand Crawley swiftly turns into a funny acquaintance for Jake and Marc.
- I've Come Too Far: Khonshu is glumly aware he has been a terrible patron to his Avatars and deserved for the other gods to banish him in a tiny corner of the Overvoid, so Marc and Steven insisting he was punished long enough is met with some potent doubt from his side.
- Jerkass Gods:
- Khonshu was an extreme Bad Boss to his Fists of Vengeance and grew so unruly that his pantheon banished him by reducing his power drastically. To his credit, he's aware of it and not proud of it.
- Horus is extremely proud and entitled, viewing war and conflict as a fun game.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Horus heavily mistrusts Khonshu taking a new Avatar, mainly because the moon deity genuinely was a major jackass and change doesn't come that swiftly to immortal beings.
- Offing the Offspring: Sure, Khonshu raised Marc from dying on the sidewalk, but it doesn't change the fact that Wendy wanted for her son to die when she pushed him out of the window.
- Parental Substitute: The grouchy skeletal bird laying claim to godhood has to raise a traumatized kid as his new Avatar. The saddest thing is that he botches the job much more less than the boy's human parents.
- Parents as People: Elias Spector was struggling with his grief over losing his younger son and his older son growing more and more disturbed, to the point he actually abandoned Marc in a psychiatric hospital out of the desperate hope that the boy would finally get the help Elias was unable to provide. It didn't work, and when his wife seemingly kills Marc, the rabbi is left a heartbroken shell latching on the absence of a body to not fully sink in despair.
- The Runaway: After Wendy threw them out of the window, Jake and Marc would rather sleep in a homeless shelter than go back to the Spector household.
- Turn the Other Cheek: Elias attempted to instill this mindset in his son, but Jake wouldn't have it since bullies insisted on bothering Marc and Steven.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Hathor and Anubis nostalgically remember Khonshu formerly was a truly benevolent god who wanted to care for travelers and children as best as he could... until this wish broke him in a bitter, selfish shadow of himself.
- We Used to Be Friends: Hathor and Anubis are still on speaking terms with Khonshu, but the tension is plain in their interactions.
