Title: Revisionist History
Author's LJ/DWJ: penknife
Categories: kidfic, angst
Warnings: none
Author's Webpage/Fic list: SG-1 tag
Link to story: Revisionist History

Why this should be read: What would a theme be without a Penknife fic? Her usual mature writing, realism, and incisive characterization are in full force throughout this look at Daniel's childhood.

We see little Daniel's independence, stubbornness, and ultimate practicality. He's a precocious child, but still a child. The foster system and families aren't monsters, just overworked people with circumstances of their own, ill-suited to understanding this intellectual, non-Americanized kid.

It reads like canon, a beautifully written portrait of young Daniel, with hints of adult Daniel's self-awareness as he looks back.


His first long-term foster parents were good people. He understands that, now. They expected an eight-year-old to go to Sunday School and not talk about how the myths of the Christian Bible paralleled some of the stories of Horus and Isis. His parents' friends had been charmed when he said things like that, on long evenings where everyone drank beer and argued about archaeology and historiography and politics.

Instead he had to apologize to his Sunday School teacher, even though he didn't know why. He didn't understand then that he was living in another culture. No one had ever told him to say "yes, sir" to adults, or that he wasn't supposed to argue with adults even if he thought he was right. He found it hard to grasp the idea that he was supposed to be supervised by someone all the time. He was eight years old, not a baby.

It didn't occur to him to ask someone for a ride to the library rather than just walking. It didn't occur to him that if he had permission to ride the bus to the library, he wasn't supposed to explore the rest of the places you could go on the bus. He wasn't supposed to spend all his time in his room, but he also wasn't supposed to talk about anything he was interested in, and he never knew what to do when he came home from school that wouldn't somehow make trouble.

"Why won't you just behave like a normal kid!" his foster father yelled at him once in frustration, and he knew he was supposed to say he was sorry, but he found himself yelling back instead, "I don't know what you want! I hate you and your whole stupid family! You're all so stupid!"